No More National Writing Month Events for Me

Bringing an end to participating in NaNoWriMo and NaJoWriMo

Photo courtesy of Dziana Hasanbekava via Pexels.

I’m officially done with entering another national writing month event like NaNoWriMo and NaJoWriMo.

Last November, I completed NaJoWriMo for the first time writing every calendar day. Although I didn’t achieve the 50,000-word count goal, I managed to complete nine chapters consisting of 15,046 words. My intent was to get through the month for writing 30-days without quitting from any frustration.

I’m currently participating in NaJoWriMo this month trying to write a minimum of 500 words every day. I fell short aof reaching that mark on the 9th with 290 words, but my accumulated count as of January 12th is 7,740 words. That averages out to 645 words per day, which is above average. Unfortunately, there have been some sessions where I noticed my enthusiasm to write waned. I had that feeling yesterday when I struggled to get through journaling, which is not a good thing. My fear is that sentiment will carry over into other creative outlets, including my future Medium stories.

This is a decision I’m sticking with going forward. My ego maybe enticed by the challenge of accomplishing events like NaNoWriMo and NaJoWriMo, but my heart won’t be in it, and I always write from that source.