The Downsides of Experience

So yeah, remember this Camp NaNoWriMo thing that I mentioned earlier...?

Put simply, I fail. I wrote one day's worth of writing immediately after midnight on July 1st, and then promptly commenced with the ignoring of the entire affair. I have not written a single word since, a full week and a half later.

Which isn't to say that I couldn't turn this around; I've seen more amazing comebacks from others before. I am forced to admit that I simply do not have the will to do so. The reason I got this far in the hole to begin with was that I couldn't seem to bring myself to write. There was always something else to do, some other project to worry about, and so on and so forth. Sadly, there's no reason to suspect that I will be able to change that in the time I have left, especially not to the degree of writing 29 days' worth in 19 days. Which means I think this particular project is dead.

To some extent I guess I'm overdue. I've had two good runs with the typical November NaNoWriMo, and I don't think I had fully committed myself to this new summer version. Honestly, I think part of that comes from greater experience with writing in general. Or at least, a sharper self-censoring routine. Part of the point of NaNoWriMo in general is that you don't let yourself worry about the quality of the writing. Pound out fifty thousand words, and worry about editing later when you have a novel to work with. I think what happened this July was that I have a slightly better sense of what mistakes I usually make when writing, and hadn't quite reminded myself of how NaNoWriMo is supposed to work.

Well, however it happened, I'm not going to be writing a novel this July. Oh well. I'll refocus on the fanfiction that I have sitting around, and there's always round 2 of camp in August...