Stumbling blocks to 50K

So Nano has kicked off for my seventh year of participation, filled with plot twists and resting bags of peas on my wrists for a week after it’s over. But when it’s over I have 50,000 more words than I did at the beginning of the month, so I mustn't complain.

I mustn't. But I will.

My motivation for Nano is always subject to fluctuation, depending on the various things going on in my life at the time. These tend to form hurdles on my sprint to 50K, and their size varies greatly depending on how tempting or pressing they are. This year though, I seem to be trudging rather painfully towards the end, even though to the outside gaze, it looks as though I’m doing swimmingly (17K on day 4 is a pretty good result by most people’s standards).

My blocks this year have ranged from the tiny little pebbles to huge mountains on the track in front of me. My big problem is that I have a very short attention span. Even now, writing this post, I’m itching to go and do a million other things. My anxiety doesn't help – when I have deadlines looming or things that I know I should get done, my body goes into a state of nervous tension until I can get them finished. This makes me even more erratic, and any hope of concentration I had goes out of the window.

Other things get in the way. Even though I’m resolutely focused on writing this story, my other stories (particularly fanfictions – Sisters of the Infinite Schism and Shadow Summoners, I’m looking at you!) are waving coyly at me from the sidelines, trying to entice me over with their sexy plot twists and curvaceous characters (River Song and Kisara in particular are being really flirty with me right now!). I’ve spent the last few days listening to one track on my iPod over and over again, purely because its inspired such a wonderful scene for Shadow Summoners that it makes me want to put my Nano on hold and run off to write it. But this way lies demons, mainly because I cannot chunk write (with me, it dramatically attacks the flow of my writing), and doing this scene now would not turn out well.

If these stories are the mythically beautiful sirens on the side of the track, waving at me enticingly, then Pokemon Y is the massive hedge in the middle of the track (you know, the kinds of hedges that are single-handedly responsible for tripling the mortality rate of horses in the Grand National). I cannot emphasise how much I want to play this game. I’m growing rather attached to my team, even if it is currently suffering from a rather glaring lack of balance, with three fires, two waters and an electric type. I get very fond of my Pokemon in my games (yes I know they’re strings of computer code – shh!) and I don’t think I can be blamed for wanting to continue my adventure.

But I have to be good. To that end, I’ve taken to playing it in the one place where it is impossible for me to write – the bath. There is something rather satisfying about reclining in hot water and Lush bubbles up to my neck and level grinding like a woman possessed. All I’d need is a cup of tea to make the image perfect.

And of course, my friends and boyfriend are still here – this is the one thing I will stop for on the Nano track. They’re just too important to me. Jenny and Rob are back for a few days this week, and I’d never miss the chance to spend time with them. Then we’re still in Tennerfest season, and I have three in a row this week (White D’or, Duke of Richmond and somewhere else yet to be decided). Craig is busy too, fighting off the demons of term paper and other assignments in between his job, so at every point he manages to find a second to squeeze himself online, I'm there.

So I have enough obstacles and things to stop for on this track as it is. But the worst thing is that I’ve also got a dead weight dragging me back as I try to claw my way towards the finish line.

I'm always critical of my work, but lately this has morphed into something very real. It’s very rare that I like my writing any more. It’s been building over the past year, but its only since Nano started that I’ve fully got a grasp of what it is. Its like there’s no spark of life in my writing – it’s just words on a page, that don’t inspire anything. I look at my friends like Craig and Jess who are churning out masterpieces, and my own work feels stilted in comparison. And it scares me.

And it’s killing my Nano. I might be writing fast, but I hate what I'm writing. I know you’re not supposed to like your first draft – that’s the whole point of Nano. You’re getting the first draft out of the way. But even all my other first drafts had something inside them; a little ember of something beautiful, just waiting to have petrol thrown on it. But everything I write lately just seems to be a dead lump of charcoal.

I can’t give up on writing, even though it sounds like I might be. It’s the only talent I have (or had). All I can do is claw on down the track and hope that this deadness in my words doesn't last forever.