Yesterday I went to sleep after having written roughly 26 pages, which was only slightly more aggressive than the pace I maintained to finish the challenge within 11 days: roughly 18-20 pages a day.
Am I surprised? Is anyone surprised? No, indeed. We all know that when I decide to write, I get out of my own way and write.
What surprises me, though, is that I have had weird and unpleasant feelings about the process all the way through. Some part of that was feeling that I was being unsportsmanslike. Why had I signed up to do something I knew I could do easily? That smacks a little to me of dishonesty. It was never a competition for me, so why did I pretend?
So that’s part of it, and I feel I should apologize.
But I think, more than any of that, I feel very much as if doing NaNoWriMo was irresponsible for me as a businessperson. The days when I can sit down and do nothing but write are… well, they’re just gone. They may come again if I ever get to the point of hiring a staff. But for now to keep my business going there are tasks to be done, most of them daily, and writing 20+ pages a day and calling it good because it’s a competition a bunch of other people are doing too… and then using that to justify laying off the administrative stuff…
That’s no good. Worse, like someone who’s been on vacation I now have a backlog to work through. I’m in the middle of wrapping up one Kickstarter and launching another. I’ve got a web comic backlog to finish. I’m managing six audiobook projects and one print book project for Studio MCAH; I still have the Ai-Naidari guidebook to finish drafting and edits to turn in to Sofawolf for Godkin Book 2 (along with a cover to paint for them). And all that is separate from the ongoing minor marketing stuff I’m always doing, like interviews and podcasts and apparently Reddit AMAs.
This is the stuff that makes my art into something that buys a year’s worth of schooling for my daughter. Writing new work is important, but using it as playtime because I’m sick of project management is… well, I thought better of myself.
There is a larger issue here about the division of labor… but I think it’s inevitable that if you decide to make money off your work, you spend more time than you wish you had to on the “making money” part, which is very much separate from the “making art” part. The only solution for that I’ve seen in the wild is to make enough to hire help, so lacking any other bright ideas, that’s what I’m aiming for… not exactly an easy goal, given that I write niche fiction that flies under the radar of organizations, awards and reviewers that reward it. But it’s what I’ve got to work with, so…
I’m still planning to finish Pearl in the Void this month, because I need to get that out the door: part of any business is new product production, after all. But I remain unsure whether I should have “done” NaNoWriMo, and whether it’s anything I should be proud of.
It sounds like you did gain some invaluable, visceral perspective in the course of participation. I know that the experience continues to do the same for me every year, even here halfway into my seventh run. Good luck!