Things not to worry about

We're midway through NaNo. Now is the time to think about what it's going to take to reach your goal and still have fun doing it. Your goal doesn't have to be 50k. It can be more or less than that number, and it's entirely up to you what you decide. You need at least 50k to get the winner's certificate at the end of the month, but that's just a computer-generated file and really doesn't say anything about how hard you worked. If you are happy with your work, then that's all that matters.

What you don't need to worry about is what anyone else is doing.

More words, less words, good words, 'bad' words (whatever you think those might be) or anything else. This is now between you, the blank page and the calendar. That's all you need to consider.

Complaining about what others are writing is egotistical and rude, though I don't think the people doing it quite realize it at the time. Well, at least some of them. You can say things in private. We all do. (It's no secret that I'm not a big fan of fanfiction.) But posting on the boards about it shows that your focus is not where it should be -- on your own work.

I spend a lot of time defending NaNo to people who think that it is some sort of attack on literature and a travesty against the 'real' authors of the world. Then, finding people talking about what people should and should not write in NaNo just annoys the hell out of me. It's much the same as being told that the science fiction and fantasy genres aren't 'real' writing, which is another longtime problems those of us in the genres face. It's defining what's proper based on personal likes, dislikes and goals.

It's no one's business what others write. It's not going to affect your life one way or another. Celebrate that they are writing at all and enjoying themselves and don't worry about it!

And on my own writing, I am in the midst of writing probably the most boring magical battle I've ever seen. Right now it's mostly just a set of actions and occasional dialogue to remind me of what I want to happen. When I get to the edit phase, I am going to focus on this scene and see what I can do to bring it back to life. Right now, though, I'm going to keep moving to the end of the novel. I know that there is one more major magical battle by the end. I think, when the novel is done, that this battle that I'm writing now is going to partly foreshadow the final one. So... writing the final one will actually give me more focus on this one.

With that in mind, I think I can stop fretting and picking at it and just move on. I need to get back into the focus of NaNo and past being ill for the last week.