Writing this week has been a challenge.
Correction. Writing anything that is not the story I am working on for National Novel Writing Month has been a challenge; a huge challenge.
To succeed at NaNoWriMo you need to write 1667 words every day of the month of November. I guess after writing that many words for the novel each day (some days less, some days much more) my brain has run out of words to write anything else.
My other writing tasks, which are all attached to important goals I set for 2009, have fallen by the wayside so that I can focus on completing this personal writing challenge.
Do I regret pushing back important goals that I planned and set months ago in order to complete 50000 words for NaNoWriMo?
Sometimes you need to make changes
I don’t regret my decision for a second.
Yes I have pushed some of my other goals aside for the last month. Yes, some of these goals may not be completed until early 2010. I don’t consider missing any of these goals as a failure, because I see my accomplishment in winning at NaNoWriMo as a stupendously, incredible, huge success:
- Writing a novel is on my 100 goals list, and now I get to check it off.
- Writing a novel is giving me incredible insights, ideas, and skills that I can use with my clients that are undertaking similar creative challenges.
- Writing a novel is pushing me beyond my current limits and evolving me into a different and more exciting person.
A video to help explain
When the opportunity to experience NaNoWriMo appeared I had to make a decision: stick to my current plan, or make a quick decision and change everything. In the world of football this is called “calling an audible”.
Check out Scott Epp’s blog and watch his video post which explains what an audible is and how we can incorporate the idea of “calling and audible” into our lives.
If Scott’s video has your interest piqued, then check out this SNS post about taking action, then adapting to the results.
Can you think of a change that you could make in your life, right now, that would allow you to experience something exciting and new?