On writing (again) and NaNo

2705 / 50000

Huh, I guess it's actually kind of a good thing I have my little progress bar. I feel almost obligated to write more now, so I wound up working through a stuck point today.

Not that I'm anywhere close to NaNo pace, of course. Still, I'll get there eventually....maybe.

I realized today that perhaps my expectations for myself as a writer are a little high--not only in terms of the quality of my writing, but also in terms of my physical ability to sit down and write for long periods of time. I know that many of the writers who I idolize wrote terribly, trashy stuff when they were younger--I've seen it, and it's no better and no worse than anything I wrote a year or two ago (I'd like to think I've gotten a little more sensible, if not strictly better, since then). Moreover, I also know that now, at a time when they're producing work that I love, they're in their late 20s at the YOUNGEST--and that's a polite estimate. That gives me an entire decade to improve, so long as I stick with it.

Really, I know all young writers want to be the next Anton Chekhov or Christopher Paolini--or at least, be popular like them. I frankly would rather die than publish something like Eragon. But it's simply not realistic! So I will instead just suffer it out as a less-than-competent author for the next ten years, after which point I will have hopefully figured out a thing or two about good writing. And how to finish a longer story. That would be nice too.

And then maybe I'll try NaNo for real. It would certainly be an adventure, but I feel like finishing a 50,000-word novel in 30 days is kind of like climbing Mount Everest. It's going to be the most miserable experience of your life until you get to the top, at which point you can pretty much fling your arms out and proclaim, "I'VE WON!" And do a little victory dance of supreme awesomeness.