I came into NaNoWriMo with high hopes. I don’t have a child under the age of one, I have my own computer, I do not work outside the home, I am not enrolled in school. These are all things that have prevented me from being able to reach the 50,000 word goal in the past. And yet, I find myself struggling, despite my system, tried and true, which has gotten me through in years past.

The reason for this is two-fold. Part of it is that I am now sharing my laptop with a nine-year-old, who uses it for his schoolwork and his typing speed is about 14 wpm, so as you can imagine, some of his work takes him some time to complete. He is also participating in NaNoWriMo this year as part of his homeschool program (NaNoWriMo has a special young writers program, which children can participate in that can be found here.) So whenever he is using the computer, I am not. I have considered writing freehand, but I am not organized enough to keep track of things I write on paper.

Theoretically, my typing speed, though not as fast as my husband’s, should be fast enough to compensate for any time I lose to his schoolwork, but I have run into a second problem that I did not anticipate.

The story that I’m working on this year is one that I started on several years ago, back before I learned the importance of backing up your work remotely (these days I utilize both google drive and a thumb drive to save my work so I will have it in three places) and the motherboard of my computer one day decided it was no longer functional, at which point, neither was my entire computer. I have had people offer to help me try and access the hard drive to see if we could find the work I lost (the only thing on that whole computer I actually cared about) but for one reason or another, it never happened.

This year, I decided it was finally time to work on that story, as it has been burning a hole in my brain since conception, trying to get out, and if it wasn’t going to let me forget about it, I might as well try and get it down on paper– figuratively speaking.

It seemed like an easy win at first. The idea is really well fleshed out, as I’ve had seven years to think about it. There are even plans to turn it into a trilogy with some spin-offs and a book of related short stories. However, it became complicated really quickly.

See, the problem is– I’ve already done the work. I’m not sure exactly what the obstacle is, but either I’m being held up by anxiety that it won’t be as good as the original writing or it is because technically I have already done the work once. Brains are kind of sticky like that. I learned once upon a time not to talk much about what I am currently working on because my brain will view that as “working” which will check off the “I have worked” button in my brain, and then I’ll never actually get around to writing what I had intended on writing, I will only ever discuss it with other people.

So I’ve reached this weird, frustrating barrier that I just can’t seem to get past in that technically I’ve already done the work, and to try and write the same thing which I have already written feels like I’m moving against the current in a river of glue.

I’ve also noticed that it seems a lot easier to write down parts that I had not already included in the original manuscript, which only makes me believe harder that it is once again my brain just being lazy and stubborn because I “already did the work.”

I still believe I’m going to win. If nothing else, I have the entire week of Thanksgiving to play “catch up,” as my son does not have school that week. I’m going to keep plugging at it, lazy brain be damned, and I will tell you how I did on December 1st.