{"id":2009,"date":"2009-11-17T12:26:27","date_gmt":"2009-11-17T18:26:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/?p=2009"},"modified":"2009-11-17T12:29:40","modified_gmt":"2009-11-17T18:29:40","slug":"nanowrimo-looking-ahead-looking-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/2009\/11\/nanowrimo-looking-ahead-looking-behind\/","title":{"rendered":"#NaNoWriMo: Looking ahead. Looking behind."},"content":{"rendered":"

Story time. You’ve earned it.<\/p>\n

(Yeah I know I busted you in the chops yesterday and you’re all grim determination and I-don’t-care-if-it-sucks-I’m-DOING-IT today, and that’s fine. That’s good, in fact. But first, story time.)<\/p>\n

When I was a kid, we had a huge lawn. Huge. The trauma has blocked clear memory of the thing from my mind<\/s> I don’t know precisely how big, but I remember that it was easier to express as acres than square feet. It took about five hours to mow the thing on a riding mower, if you had to bag the clippings.<\/p>\n

I want to be clear here, because sometimes I joke or exaggerate for effect: in this case, I\u00a0am not joking or exaggerating for effect; it took five damn hours.<\/p>\n

Guess who got to mow that fucking thing every Saturday?1<\/sup><\/p>\n

To put it mildly, I hated it. It was a huge, daunting thing that never ever looked like it was going to be done.<\/p>\n

When I complained about it, my mom had this suggestion:<\/p>\n

In the first half, look at how much you’ve got done. In the last half, look at how little you’ve got left.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

You get that little bit of midwest zen, guys? Take it to heart.<\/p>\n

Look back for a second at what you’ve written. Thousands and thousands of words. Maybe you’re not quite halfway. Pff. Maybe you’re not loving the story. Fine. But it’s still a story<\/em>. It generally hangs together in that way a story does, and you made it. You made up this thing out of your head<\/em> and wrote it down — this amazing, gargantuan thing — maybe something bigger than anything you’ve ever done.<\/p>\n

Be proud of that.<\/p>\n

Now, look ahead.\u00a0Compare what you have left to do to what you’ve already done.<\/p>\n

Piece. of. monkey. cake.<\/p>\n

How do I know this?<\/p>\n

Because you have already done an Impossible Thing, and that makes you mighty.<\/p>\n

\"You<\/a>
You live here.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Be mighty.<\/p>\n

Write a book<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Have fun.<\/p>\n

\n

1<\/sup> – And people wonder how I got so much reading done as a kid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Story time. You’ve earned it. (Yeah I know I busted you in the chops yesterday and you’re all grim determination and I-don’t-care-if-it-sucks-I’m-DOING-IT today, and that’s fine. That’s good, in fact. But first, story time.) When I was a kid, we had a huge lawn. Huge. The trauma has blocked clear memory of the thing from … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “#NaNoWriMo: Looking ahead. Looking behind.”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_import_markdown_pro_load_document_selector":0,"_import_markdown_pro_submit_text_textarea":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[8,42],"tags":[636],"class_list":["post-2009","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-resources","category-writing","tag-nanowrimo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2009"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2016,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2009\/revisions\/2016"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2009"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2009"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/doycetesterman.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2009"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}