Gearing up for Failure

So, in all the years I've attempted NaNoWriMo, I've never managed to finish it. It's a tough thing to try and produce a full novel length manuscript in a month even at the best of times. Each year I go in with varying levels of preparation, and each year I peter out at around 20,000 words. Early on it was an issue of discipline, but now it's that I'm just a very busy person and not a perfect writing machine.

Facing the challenge this year, I really wanted to create a new login. The legacy of failure, even if I don't place too much emotional investment in it, is daunting. Part of me wants to start fresh. However, the site is pretty rigidly tied into email addresses and I'd have to fiddle with it to get it to let go. The difficulty made me pause and really think about it though.

Reasons I don't finish Nanowrimo:

1. I'm good at world building and starting a narrative. But until recently, I didn't realize that I need to think of stories in terms of conflict and resolution. You can't get far without conflict in a novel...about 20,000 words in fact.

2. I am plagued by self-doubt and there are so many other productive and necessary things I should be doing if I'm not going to be any good at this writing schtick. So, I go do that stuff instead so that I can not worry about it while I'm writing.

3. If I never finish, I can't be rejected. (Lame, I know but it's there.) Once a book is finished, there's editing, but eventually someone will read it...and that is scary.

4. I get bored. (Which is insane really, but it happens. It's not bored with the story, it's bored with sitting in the same place staring at a wall.) I think I need to take my laptop out and write in other places.

5. Thomas is so darn cute and I miss talking to my husband. Ah, the central struggle of writing... loneliness

6. Overwhelmed with possibility and mired in indecision. I think I need to outline better/more.

So all of that is very human, but look at all the stuff I've figured out about me. So perhaps I should view it less as a history of failure and more as a history of self exploration and discovery. Sounds very healthy and self-help book, doesn't it?