I have generalized anxiety disorder, social anxiety disorder, OCD, among other things.
I have won NaNo twice--the first two years I tried it. I think I was successful in those years because I was enthusiastic and passionate about it, but also because I found it freed me from my anxiety. I was able to push past it, because I wasn't trying to write a great novel. It was all about word count, and I didn't have time to think about it or worry about it or anything else.
But the last two years? I failed. :-( I think that once I won twice, I started thinking too much about what I was writing and why. My first two novels will never see the light of day and I'm okay with that. I wrote them for fun. But last year? And the year before? And this year? I feel like something should come of this,* and no matter how much I talk to myself and tell myself that I should just let go and feel that freedom that I had in the first two years, I can't seem to do it.
*By "come of this," I don't mean a publishable novel, but just maybe some improvement in my writing, something that tells me that I *can* write and that somehow this all means something.
Ack!
I wish you luck. I really want to get back to that feeling I had in the first two years.
ETA: After reading the comments, I was reminded of a couple of other things that helped me in my first years:
Mentioned in a comment above, if I felt a sentence or a paragraph sucked or if I changed my mind about the direction of a scene, rather than go back and fix it or edit it right then, I just highlighted it in Word and moved on. That way I could assure myself I'd fix it later.
I wrote almost my entire first NaNo novel in the NaNo chat room doing Word Wars (which I think the LJ groups call sprints). This urgency to just write a bunch of words right now helped me to get over some of my fears.
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2009-11-03 08:51 pm (UTC)I have won NaNo twice--the first two years I tried it. I think I was successful in those years because I was enthusiastic and passionate about it, but also because I found it freed me from my anxiety. I was able to push past it, because I wasn't trying to write a great novel. It was all about word count, and I didn't have time to think about it or worry about it or anything else.
But the last two years? I failed. :-( I think that once I won twice, I started thinking too much about what I was writing and why. My first two novels will never see the light of day and I'm okay with that. I wrote them for fun. But last year? And the year before? And this year? I feel like something should come of this,* and no matter how much I talk to myself and tell myself that I should just let go and feel that freedom that I had in the first two years, I can't seem to do it.
*By "come of this," I don't mean a publishable novel, but just maybe some improvement in my writing, something that tells me that I *can* write and that somehow this all means something.
Ack!
I wish you luck. I really want to get back to that feeling I had in the first two years.
ETA: After reading the comments, I was reminded of a couple of other things that helped me in my first years:
Mentioned in a comment above, if I felt a sentence or a paragraph sucked or if I changed my mind about the direction of a scene, rather than go back and fix it or edit it right then, I just highlighted it in Word and moved on. That way I could assure myself I'd fix it later.
I wrote almost my entire first NaNo novel in the NaNo chat room doing Word Wars (which I think the LJ groups call sprints). This urgency to just write a bunch of words right now helped me to get over some of my fears.