Persistence

I hate my NaNoWriMo novel.  Really, I do.  It's taking too long to get anywhere, I can't seem to find a rhythm in the writing, the characters are flat and lifeless, and I'm sure what I'm writing is the biggest pile of dung ever to grace any of the computer screens of history.  It's seriously just that bad.

I'll probably spend at least three hours today writing on it. 

"Why," you ask, "in the name of All Things Good and Holy would you spend time writing something that you loathe?"

My answer is this: because I have to write through to the end if I want to see the good in it.

I've done this novel-in-a-month thing now four other times, and every time, usually around the 30,000 or 40,000 word mark (though it's later in the month this year time-wise because I'm writing slowly this year for some reason), I seriously begin to wonder why I'm doing all of this.  It is a true challenge to drag myself to the computer, sit down, open the document, and keep typing, creating this world from thin air.  All the enjoyment, the euphoria of the first week are gone, replaced by the drudgery that is The Job of Getting the Words On the Page.

At this point in the month, I'll do almost anything to get out of writing.  I'll balance my financial spreadsheet (no old-fashioned check book here).  I'll do the dishes.  Laundry? -- Bring it on!  Write a blog post? -- Absolutely!

God help me if what I decide to fill my time with is actually fun.

Then, only when I've exhausted every other possible avenue of procrastination will I sit down, put my fingers on the keys, and move my poor main character toward his ultimate fate.  The words will feel like bitter herbs (that analogy doesn't quite translate from the taste to the tactile sensation), the rhythm will sound like salt in an open wound (I seem to be having major analogy troubles today), and the story itself will be so bad it will be not good.

In other words, the writing will go about like that last paragraph did.

So again you ask, "Then WHY do you keep doing it?"

I keep doing it, because when I get to the end, when I reach my 50,000 word goal, and then when I finally get to the point where I can stamp the words "THE END" in the center of the page, I will have written a novel.  Certainly not a finished novel, maybe not even a good novel, but a novel nonetheless. 

And then, a month later, when I take it out and start to reread it, I'll discover the most miraculous thing: it's not that bad.  Oh, there will be typos out the wazoo, misnumbered chapters, plot holes large enough to swallow whole planets, flat dialog, awful descriptions, and double-plus-un-good analogies, but peeking out past and through all of that will be a novel with some actual merit, a story that deserves to see the light of day, if only I choose to work with what I've got, tear away the refuse, and polish it to a high sheen.

As I sit and look at my monitor today, as I kick and prod Harold Dane toward his eventual date in Colorado, I'll put the words down, write one after another after another, because I know that in late December, when I look back on what I've done here, I'll see the good that's happened, and I'll know that every hour, every minute, every excruciating second I spent typing was well worth the effort.

No matter what creative project you're working on -- a story, a painting, a song, whatever -- you don't have the perspective to judge it well when you're in the middle of working on it.  All that's required of you as a Creative is to work on it, faithfully, diligently, until it gets done.  Only then can you look back on it and see it for what it truly is.

So, stop procrastinating, sit down, and get creating!