NaNo Pep Talks

So, every week, heck, it feels like every few days or so, the folks at NaNoWriMo send out pep talks.  Some are by long time NaNo champs, others are by real, live, published authors.  Most of them are pretty good.  Some have made me laugh, many have made me feel less alone -- I'm not the only one struggling with word count!  But the latest one is just brilliant.

The most resent one, that I just received, made me smile and laugh out loud more than once.  I have to share the closing paragraph because it... It's just that wonderful damnit.

In short, quit. Writing a novel is a tiny candle in a dark, swirling world. It brings light and warmth and hope to the lucky few who, against insufferable odds and despite a juggernaut of irritations, find themselves in the right place to hold it. Blow it out, so our eyes will not be drawn to its power. Extinguish it so we can get some sleep. I plan to quit writing novels myself, sometime in the next hundred years. 

--Lemony Snicket

I plan to re-read this one many times.  I love it.  I love Lemony Snicket.  Heck, I have two of his? her? series even! And it's a kids book!  But I couldn't help myself.  Only lack of funds stopped me from buying the rest.  I really need to get myself a library card so I can read them! Sarcastic, funny, I just love the way Lemony writes.

And I now have some hope where before I had none.  I mean, I do kind of write for myself.  But really, if no one ever reads it, if no one ever likes it, then, well, it feels pointless.  But Lemony made such a good argument against writing, that I totally feel it's possible, someone out there might love my story they way I've loved things I couldn't share with my friends either. lol.  The hope that someone will love my work, the knowledge that that hope isn't far fetched, THAT is what makes me want to continue.  

Wow, that's a really vain reason to write isn't it?  Or maybe I'm just being realistic.  For me, writing can be fun, but usually it's frustrating, hard, fumbling, and sometimes really hot.  But it's work.  It's work that makes me feel like I've accomplished something.  It wakes my brain up, it excites me.  And yet....  I long for an audience.  I want so very much to be read, to have my work read, and liked, maybe even loved.  I have to finished it for this to happen, of course.  But I've been losing hope.  Losing hope that anyone would ever willingly read it. Lemony has given me some of that hope back.