The Post November Hangover

I feel as if I am hungover and need to recover from a long night of drinking. I’ve never made the correlation between NaNoWriMo and a really good party, but there it is.

It’s the end of NaNoWriMo and the beginning of the holiday season.

There is a let-down after all the hype of November, at least in the writing world. The build up begins during October and, if you are lucky, lasts all the way through the end of the month.

It did for me. I spend the month of November, happily typing away on my novel reaching my required 50,000 words before the end of the third week. I kept going because the story wasn’t done. Finishing the month strong, I still had nearly a quarter of my novel to complete.

Then came December. I’m still in novel writing mode which means I have a goal of 2000 words each day until I’m done. Fast forward to today and I’m feeling the downward swing.

I’ve just had my second day of not working on my novel. I can see the end, I have about 10,000 words to go. Only I seem to have lost any drive to go on writing.

Welcome, to the NaNo Hangover.

There is such a community of writers coming together during the month of November. The excitement tends to wane throughout the month, but there are always a group that hangs on until the end. It is a wonderful experience.

Once it is over, the community doesn’t go away but the excitement tends to. Everyone has the post-November hangover.

The energy is gone and all that is left is to finish all the words. Now, I just want to sleep.

The end is in sight. I can see it, I can even taste it. My intention is to let my novel rest when it is complete and I can type “The End.” Only making it to that point seems to be moving further and further away.

At this moment, the most difficult thing I am doing is walking to my desk and putting one word in front of the other.

I want to recover from all the excitement, energy, and focus that November requires.

I want to print out my novel and put it on my bookshelf so I can get some distance.

I want to skip to the end to be able to begin putting that distance between writing and editing.

I want to focus on the holidays, which are approaching faster than I want them to.

I don’t remember last year being like this. Of course, I finished my story within the 50,000 words and was able to let it rest. I could then move on to a new project, namely this blog.

I had hoped to finish my story by this weekend, but that seems to be a bit delayed. It may take a few more days but I this is my goal.

Of course, I have a couple more novels to plan but that is another post. That’s what being a writer is all about.