Pushing forward

Writing 50,000 words in a month is a challenge.  Oy!

I haven’t hit the halfway point and I’ve already done more than I’ve ever done towards a single writing project.  And I have to keep this up for another two weeks?

It’s discouraging to have to miss a day, but yesterday I had one of my “go to this job, go straight to that job, go straight someplace else, while also trying to put out fires as they come up with cloud storage and backing up everything from dropbox and, oh yeah, it’s 10pm, so of course my car is going to give me trouble getting home” kind of days.

Getting a show on its feet is a challenge; getting a show on its feet with student actors is an even bigger challenge; finishing a project on your own time is challenging; but THIS.  This is hell.

From an outside point of view, it’s easy to dismiss.  You’re either a writer or you’re not.  You either put in the work or you don’t.  But this is a sprint and a marathon all at the same time.  And, as everything is pushing forward, if you realize that you’re mildly unequipped to finish a bit and need a tad more research first (like the fact that I’ve realized that Plautus, the Roman comedic playwright, of whom I regretfully only have a surface knowledge, has taken a very heavy role in my story), the quota deadline doesn’t slow down to accommodate you.

And here we’re at the halfway point.  And I’m only a modest amount behind on my quota.  So I should be happy about this.  But I’m having to fight my “perfectionist attitude” to continue writing even when I’m still actively researching for authenticity and inspiration AND maintaining my teaching and rehearsing schedules.

Well, that’s my 300-dissociated-word break.  Back to putting words on the page.

****Four years later update:

Oh you naive fool. Life only gets faster, more frantic, more hectic, and harder. Making the time to write is still a personal and professional challenge. No matter your life circumstances.

I was finally able to honestly complete another year of nanowrimo this year (with the same mid project “my project centers around this real world subject that I know embarrassingly little about – I need to research it RIGHT NOW”) but this time I have the same (but one different) three consuming jobs (still performing, teaching and teaching both theater and dance) AND yet this time around I also have a demanding toddler requiring absolutely all my free time during her waking and playing and feeding and developing hours.

But, reading this entry in hindsight, I also described it all back then as a simultaneous sprint and marathon, which I remember quoting during this last round of word counting, living the life of “I’m writing in the middle of the night because every other waking hour belongs to my kid,” having completely forgotten this entry from four years ago.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.