“the curling flower” by devi laskar

The most dangerous thing I can do today is offer you praise. Yes, you’ve just worked off your tailbone and you have pages and pages to show for it. NaNoWriMo, whether you’ve followed the estimated 1667 words per day or created your own personal goals for the month, is over. And I really want to heap praise, and tell you what a great job you’ve done and how amazing it is that you’ve planned your writing habit and executed it. And you deserve the congratulations I want to shout from the highest peaks.

But praise can be a dangerous thing: To bask long  in the praise of a job well-done means you’re not thinking about the task at hand or the tasks ahead. Often, praise acts like a snakebite and renders the writer to a state of paralysis. It could mean you’ll be falling out of the writing life you’ve worked so hard to attain.

I don’t want you to stop. I want you to keep going…..So, instead of praise, I will offer you acknowledgement. I acknowledge that you take your writing life seriously. I acknowledge that many of you have struggled to establish a writing habit and stay on course and finish out the month. I acknowledge that even though you have established a writing routine, it will not be easy to maintain it. What I want for you to take away from this year’s NaNoWriMo is the fact that you’ve created a path for yourself as a writer and an artist and that you’ve made a plan and reached your short-term goals.

Tomorrow is the start of December. What are your goals for the coming month? Make a plan, it doesn’t have to be elaborate, it doesn’t have to be at the crank-it-out pace of November. It just has to be a plan that you’re willing to stick with, and that will help you lead the writing life you’ve always imagined.