To no one’s surprise, I am heavily influenced by competition and gamification. NaNoWriMo’s dashboard gives you badges for different milestones and challenges. For example, today I got the “14” badge that you get for updating your word count 14 days in a row. I’d love to earn all the badges but I realized too late that one of the challenges is hitting 1,667 words every day . . . the “Achieve Daily Par Every Day” badge. I flexed my wordcount too much in the first two weeks (for example writing 3-4K on some days so I could have a few days at 1K words, not the consistency 1,667).
After a day of work, running a League of Women’s Voters committee meeting, and writing for two hours I am spent. But looking at my little dashboard makes me happy. Even if I will have to throw so, so many of these words and scenes out when I try to fix this mess of a draft later. In a mess of a work week (month? year?), it feels — okay maybe not good, but at least important — that I honor this commitment to myself.
With Love,
Natalie