Comparison + Mini Tip

This morning, on our drive in to work, I compared this year's experience with the first day of starting NaNoWriMo with last year's. It goes something like this:

Last year, it felt like jumping down a really deep well. I was terrified to start, and the very beginning was frightening beyond all belief, but within seconds, I was like, "Yay! Free fall! Woo, I'm flying!" This year, knowing what it was like last year, I jumped in with far less hesitation, but immediately slammed into the sides of the well and tumbled from side to side on my way down for a long while. After that, I started to free-fall again, but I was rubbing my sides and grabbing my broken ribs, going, "Oh... yay... free fall... Woo! Ow!"

Heh.

One thing that works for me when I have a relatively low wordcount for the day and am feeling bad is checking my wordcount over and over after each sentence. At first, it's depressing when you don't have as high a number as you wanted to, but seeing that number get bigger and bigger with each sentence is a morale booster. After several sentences, I have a new paragraph, and it always amazes me how many words even a short paragraph adds.

And having Seppo so far ahead of me is also a huge incentive, as is having the chart of my progress from last year right next to me. I have to beat myself at least, right?