Why do I STILL do NaNoWriMo?

"Why do you still do NaNoWriMo?" people ask. "Why are you actually here?"

It's a legitimate question, and I guess people have a right to wonder.

"Hey," they say, and go on with any combination of, "you write double the NaNo word quota each month, you're a published writer, you've got a successful eight-book series under your belt, your own stuff is coming along, and you even do work-for-hire, so, what's the deal?"

Why ARE you taking part?

Are you showing off? Grand-standing? Trying for an easy feel-good success? Marking time? Wasting time?

Every year...

Why do you do it?

It just doesn't make sense.

You know what? It makes perfect sense to me. It's part of the path I've chosen.

I take part because NaNo reminds me of where I came from. It reminds me of the work it took to write more than 1k a day - and that that's not an easy thing for some writers, especially those just starting out. NaNo keeps my head grounded.

To answer the other questions: I don't need to show off, and I fail often enough to know better than to try. I'm too busy to grand-stand; I have too much writing, editing, formatting and learning (yes, learning) to do to waste time on that.

An 'easy feel-good success'? ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? NaNo is anything but. NaNo is words. Words aren't that easy to write, even when you do it every day - and good words are doubly hard. Never forget that. Words are hard. Not writing is easy.

Marking Time? As if the NaNo project doesn't count... The project I'm working on - and I am still working on it, even though I hit my NaNo 50k - now forms the basis of my next eight-book series. It didn't exist until I sat down to write on November 1, this year...and now I have werewolf mercenaries in space and a cover on the way.

Wasting time? No, see above. This book, this series, is on my publishing schedule, and I still have a tonne of writing left.

NaNo makes a lot of sense to me. It's a challenge for me to complete it, every year - and there are some years I've failed - but it's worth the time I spend. It still takes discipline - and it makes me pay attention to what I'm doing with my time. It demands accountability, even if all I manage at the end of a long day of trying to reach the goal is update the word count.

And I get to meet some wonderful people there. Some won't pursue writing as a career, but they are still writers, and some are going to be great writers, starting from one of the places I started, and some are going to be somewhere in between. It doesn't matter who they are, or whether they 'win' this year, or where they choose to end up. I am still grateful to have had someone with whom to share the journey.

And THAT is the other reason I do NaNo.

I hope to see some of you in November 2021...if not before.

Writing is a journey, but we don't have to walk all of it alone.