52 Days

I attempted NaNoWriMo last year. The keyword in that sentence is "attempted". I think my final word count was just over 3,000, having given up just about 2 or 3 days into the challenge. Of course I had plenty of excuses - a job, finals, sophomore year of college, etc., but, if I was being honest, I was just lazy and when I lost the enthusiasm of the first few days, I just didn't care enough to put the effort in that it would take to reach 50,000 words. Maybe giving up was for the best, though, since no matter how hard I try, I can't seem to remember what I was writing about last year. It must not have been that important to me. Either way, the idea I have this year has been bouncing around my head since about April. I didn't write the idea down and I haven't even really talked about it until now because I didn't think I would do anything about it. I'm not really a writer. I used to be. Up until I was 16 or 17, I wrote all the time - poems, songs, stories, everything. I have notebooks upon notebooks filled with stories I wrote when I was 8, songs I wrote when I was 10, and poems depicting every overly-dramatic moment of my teenage years. At some point when I was about 17, I started taking anti-depressants. They got rid of my depression, but they also took away every other emotion, and my emotions were my source of inspiration for writing. I can almost pinpoint the exact moment I stopped writing. So for the past almost 4 years I haven't written more than maybe 5 poems, no songs, and no stories. I think my problem is, whenever I have an idea for anything, I start writing and as soon as one thing isn't portrayed as well in writing as it is in my head, I give up. I think I have to realize that it's not always going to be the same in my head as it will be on paper, but that doesn't mean I should stop. I shouldn't let my fear of writing something bad stop me from writing. I can't get any better if I don't practice. 

"Never let the fear of striking out keep you from playing the game."

So here's to playing the game.