Naturally, I started freaking out. “But I wanted to finish the novel this month, not just hit the word count!” I lamented. “I’m failing, I just can’t do both…”

Which in turn spurred the wise words of my husband, Mr. Practical (and also Mr. Calm-Down-You’re-Overreacting-Again-Faith): “Faith, every month is NaNoWriMo for you, so it doesn’t matter if you finish the novel or not. You’re going to keep writing at this pace regardless, because that’s how you’ll develop your career… so just do what you can and don’t stress yourself out.”

Ah, easier said than done. But he did make a good point: Writing a lot means accomplishing a lot, and if I don’t stop writing every day, the novel will get finished one way or another, regardless. And, I can switch over and write the short stories this month without worrying (apparently).

So, every month is National Novel Writing Month. Okay, maybe not 50,000 words on the same story, but if I write 50,000 words every month just in general… that’ll still be a lot of work accomplished.

Have you ever totalled up all the writing you do in a month?

I’m talking: blogging, writing-related social networking, newsletters or writing-related emails, edits (words that are added), outlining, notes you take on the various books you read, AND your WIP.

Try it for a month. I challenge you to open a Word document for December and copy/paste every piece of writing you do that somehow relates to writing (social networking on writing blogs counts!). I think at the end of the month, you’ll be shocked at how much writing you actually do, not to mention have a visual of where the majority of your time was spent.

I’d be willing to be that you’re living every month like NaNoWriMo too… just maybe not focusing all your energies on one specific novel. You’re constantly doing NaNoWriMo, just not under that particular name… maybe, NaWriMo (National Writing Month), over and over again.

I’d say that’s pretty darn encouraging.

In other news, I’m still attempting to make use of the bulletin board from a few weeks back (refer to previous posts about motivation), but it’s not going so well. Apparently to make it work, you have to actually post new things and, oh… complete some of the ones you already have up there. So far, I have about 50 ‘to-do’ things and maybe 3 in the ‘Doing’ category. Now, I know Holly says to limit yourself to 5 things at a time – ie. only make cards about 5 tasks ahead of yourself – but it’s a very busy time and almost everything on the list is urgent… and ironically, few are about writing. Maybe it’s just the time of year, but it isn’t really working for me right now.

I’m not going to give up yet, though! At the very least, my long term goals are posted on the board, and it’s good to see them over and over… well, except for on certain days when all they do is depress me, but that’s another thing for another time.

Ah well.