Goal Setting

I'm a winner! Okay, now to explain. For those of you who haven't read my last post, last month I decided to do National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo.For those of you who want to see the official website, click on the hyperlink in my last post. This is a challenge to write (and submit to a website) fifty thousand words in a matter of thirty days. That just sounds like a big number, but once I got started, I had the feeling I would be able to make this amount of words, no problem. For the first couple of days I didn't write anything-I didn't need to. I already had a number of scenes from different dreams I had, random writings I had felt like doing, and other things that related to what I had planned my story to be. I found quickly that was not the way to go about things. That first Saturday of November was spent almost entirely at the computer, trying desperately to catch up to where I was supposed to be to stay on schedule. I found it incredibly difficult to try and manage typing at least 2,000 words per day when I had to worry about other things like schoolwork and the social life I try so desperately to retain (even though I had warned many people about the coming hermitage that I would be sticking myself into). Thanksgiving weekend was even more difficult, seeing as I spent most of my time visiting relatives that I hadn't seen in about a year. I was hopelessly behind by the last day of November (hey, can you blame me? If you loved your family as much as I did, you would be, too). But lo and behold, I was able to complete my 50,000 words by midnight on November 30, hence, I'm a winner!

There were so many people who, when I told them I had won (and these were the ones that knew about NaNo) the first thing they asked was, "What did you win?" When I shrugged and told them, "Nothing." They quickly became uninterested and walked away, telling me it wasn't worth anything if I didn't win something that was a tangible prize. Throughout the month, I had similar responses when people asked me what I was doing and I replied that I was writing a story. One of them wouldn't stop bugging me until I told him I had an inkling of a thought to publish it, which afterwards he said, "Good. It wouldn't be worth anything unless you did." Wrong. Completely wrong. I don't understand that mentality-people who only do things for a physical reward, or for that matter, people who do things for an external reward of any kind. Intrinsic motivation is where a person is motivated to do something of their own free will because they enjoy it. That is why I write. And NaNoWriMo has been one of the most motivating things for me as a writer, because now I know that I can accomplish things. I often get the best story idea ever, only to have it piddle away as I notice the flaws and contradictions that occur. Rarely have I ever gotten more than about three or four pages into the story before I lose interest. With NaNo, however, I have found that I can persevere and complete a goal that I may have, even if I get discouraged, which believe you me, I did a lot last month. I learned that I can do anything that I want to do if I keep myself focused on the goal, and not on the obstacles that inevitably surround them. That, to me, was the biggest thing I learned. That was the reason I did NaNoWriMo, and the reward I found in it was better than any certificate or amount of money could provide.

Oh, I almost forgot! There was one more thing I intended to do, and I almost skipped it. Now that I've finished my story (well, mostly), I would like people to comment on this post on whether they want me to post any portion of it on here or not. If I deem there are enough people/more than about three, then I will post portions of the story that I have written (but only the good parts, because trust me, when you're writing at two in the morning to catch up to a deadline, there are some things that just don't look good). And just EFY, I will give you the title, perhaps just to tantalize more people to post "yes". And if you already did, get as many people as you can to get on here and vote yes, too (just my shameless plug, because I really want to post this, but I'm asking for opinions, too). The title is "Spiders of Salem".