November is over, and my goal for the month was a... qualified success. The success part comes into this because I did actually reach the 50,000-word NaNoWriMo "win" benchmark. But let's face it; after five previous years with winning marks it wasn't really a question of if I would win but what the final word count would be. And I say qualified because I didn't reach my secondary goal of finishing the manuscript. Granted, this one did balloon into something larger than I expected. But I tend to see the goals I set for myself in some pretty harshly defined either/or terms. Setting a goal to write 50,000 words in November for me would like saying "My goal is to get out of bed eventually and eat something every day." So saying November was a success feels a bit like a cheat -- even at 68,000 words. I still didn't finish yet. And I should probably give up on trying to explain why I see that as a failure before even more people begin to think I'm crazy. (But it is though. Even if just temporarily. I am going to finish this one, and sooner rather than later. Then I'll be able to let it go.)
So now I'm at my final month-long goal for 2013. This one will seem fairly simple: My goal for December is to have a happy month. Last year December wound up being something of a darkish time for me, and it came on in a very sudden way: All it took was one person saying one thing. I'm sure she didn't intend her comment to be as damaging as it was, but the damage was done all the same and things just went downhill from there. I would really rather not go through that experience again, so I'm going to make a serious effort to steer around a rerun of December 2012.
The best chance I can see at having a happy month will be to stay aware of the goal each day, then remind myself what I'm trying to do and why I'm doing it. December can be an overwhelming time all on its own with so many demands on our time and attention, but there are a lot of good things about it as well. With all of those positives, there should be plenty of chances for me to actively shove the pendulum in the other direction. I'm going to try to be more aware of the good moments when I find myself inside of them, and cross my fingers that from time to time things will just wind up going my way.
I'm not really happy about posting all of this (and anyone who knows how guarded I am won't be surprised by that), but I told myself in the beginning of the year that whatever goals I went after would be things I'd discuss openly here to hold myself accountable. And this is it -- the last goal of the 2013 Momentum project, and tonight it feels like one of the more important ones. Here's hoping the year goes out on a high note....
