Off to a slow start

After months of knowing, or thinking that I knew, what I wanted to work on for NaNo this year, suddenly it was November 1...and I stalled.  I had nothing.  No words.  On the 2nd...no words.  The same on the 3rd, and I started to panic.

I was stressed because I wasn't writing.  I wasn't writing because I was stressed.  I got depressed because I was stressed and not writing.  And all I wanted to do was sleep.  So I did.  On and off for three days.

Finally, tired of causing myself so much stress, I began to write.  Free writing, not the writing I had intended to work on, but I was putting fingers to keyboard, and words were appearing on the screen.  That's all I cared about.

Those first several days that I was writing, it came so slowly, like pulling teeth.  I was still stressing and napping a lot.

Then I gave myself permission to JUST WRITE.  It didn't matter WHAT I was writing, just babbling at times.  But the words began to come faster and easier.  And then one day, I was writing again.  Still not what I had planned to write, but plotting, story ideas, a short story about a camping trip I took years ago.

And the stress went away, and I was okay.

The lesson here is to...just write.  Write every day.  When it becomes a habit, you NEED to write every day.  The day doesn't seem complete unless you have gotten words on the screen.

And maybe, just maybe, you'll be ready to call yourself a writer.