I have participated in NaNoWriMo six years now, and of those six, I’ve only “won” three times. 50% sure isn’t a bad finish rate, better than the average participant by a long shot, but there comes a time in November when you either know you’re going to make it, or you are not.

Today, I’m here to tell you that I’m not going to win NaNoWriMo, and that’s totally okay. The other years I’ve failed to hit the 50,000 word goal have been because I’ve had to move in the middle of November (never again!) but this year was a whole other string of unforeseen hurdles. Gremlins might be a more appropriate word.

Work went wahoonie shaped in a big way, requiring much more time and effort and stress than it normally does. I am headed to GeekGirl Con this weekend, and as a one-woman publishing house tabling AND moderating a panel requiring data crunching and a PowerPoint, and included a lot of interpersonal stress around people supposed to be around at the booth. And to top it all off, I am now hunting and pecking this post out on my keyboard because someone didn’t clean up after their dog and guess who fell in it. *Raises my sprained left wrist with wry defeat* Doesn’t help that this is the second time this has happened at my apartment complex…

So there’s no way on earth I’m able to type fast enough, think fast enough, breath well enough to power a story this November. That doesn’t mean I’ve stopped writing though, far from it. It just means that this NaNoWriMo instead of coming out with 50k words of story, I’ll come out with maybe 25k words and some good coping mechanisms and a better idea of how to allocate my time…and how to delegate better. And just how much pressure I can handle in one autumn before I want to curl up into the fetal position. For now, I’ll sit here with my left arm in my sling and try to finish getting ready for the Con (thankfully I’m almost there!) and be glad my wonderful husband-creature will be available to lift the heavy boxes during set-up tomorrow.

If you happen to be around Seattle, you should stop by GeekGirl Con! It’s an amazing and wonderfully inclusive con for geeks of all kinds from science to science fiction and the maths of crafts to fantasy cosplay. We’ll be running the Mneme Press booth at booth number 620, and we’ll have lots of games, books for sale, and space for you to write if you’re doing NaNoWriMo.

Happy Writing! (or not!)