Why I Didn't Finish Camp NaNoWriMo

        I've been trying to think of what to post, and then I got an email reminding me to register for Camp NaNoWriMo. Which reminded me of how catastrophically I failed last year. Voila, blog post!
      April last year was a low point for me. I was having frequent anxiety attacks and also struggling with my depression. Even so, I decided to try Camp NaNoWriMo. And, being silly and more than a little idealistic, I set my word count goal for 50,000. Everything went well enough at first, but within a week, I was behind. I was too anxious to write during most of the time I could have. I was too exhausted at night to catch up. So I fell further and further behind. And, come the end of the month, I was only at about 20,000 words.
      And I'm okay with that, for a few reasons.
      The first is that it's a heck of a lot more than I would've written had I not tried. I had a good beginning. I'd done my best. I probably technically could have written the other 30,000, but I would have been majorly stressed, possibly panicked, and I wouldn't have taken that time to take care of myself.
      That's the second. I needed to take care of myself, first. I wouldn't have had any fun writing. I wouldn't have done anything but stress myself out. Instead of writing, I spent time researching anxiety, I spent one night a week in therapy learning to manage anxiety, and I let my writing go for a bit, because it was not helping me.
       Writing is supposed to be fun. A pain in the butt and the head and the heart, but overall worth it. And that's my third point. It was not worth it last April. I needed a break for my mental health. And that's okay.
       I'm trying again this year, this time with an editing goal for my November 2015 novel. I know I'm a lot stronger than I was one year ago. I also know that life might interfere with my writing again. In fact, it probably will. But I'm accepting that, knowing that I'll get something out of it. I didn't fail last year. I didn't meet my goal, but I didn't fail. I let myself do what was best for me.
      So as you go into any of your writing goals, keep that in mind. Writing is wonderful and takes you to amazing places, but your health is more important. Let yourself fail if you need to. There will always be more time to write. But you are so important and you need to take care of yourself first. If writing helps you work through stress or problems of any sort, go for it. But if it's only going to make you feel worse, then for heaven's sake, stop worrying about it and go do something that will help you feel better now. That novel will get written eventually, but not if you're not there to write it.

On Mental Illness

     When I was creating this blog, I put the "life" bit in the title to leave it open for me to talk about things that aren't writing related, but still important.

     So today I'm writing about mental illness. I've had depression and anxiety for years. And for ages, I didn't tell anyone about it, because I was scared of what they might think. I'm not sure when I started talking about it, but I'm glad I did. Not only because it's a relief to be able to tell my friend that I need to take a minute by myself to breathe, but also because I want others to be able to talk about it. I want to fight the stigma surrounding it. I want to make it so that others can speak out, without fear of being judged. And I also want to give those of you who struggle with mental illness a pep talk. 

        Mental illness is hard. It sucks. But you know what? I think we're some of the strongest people alive. Because we're fighting a war in our head every single day. And not only are we winning, but we're also going about normal life, to the best of our ability. Sometimes victory is having a great day, but sometimes it's making it through without having a panic attack. Sometimes it's getting your homework done, or talking to people. Sometimes it's being able to get out of bed. We know that this thing will always be in our heads. We know that people won't understand that we can't do this because of our mental illness, because there's this stigma. But we still manage to function. We still live. Sometimes just staying alive is a victory.

    So, I want to tell you this. You aren't alone. You are so brave. So far you have a 100% survival rate. That's pretty darn good. You will have bad days. But you've had bad days before this, and you've made it through those. You can make it through this one, too.

    One more thing-- please, please, don't hurt yourself. You don't deserve that. There are people who care. Even if you can't see that right now, people care. Even if I've never met you, I care. It breaks my heart to think of you, not knowing that. Having people who care about me has been my greatest blessing through this. Please, talk to someone. Your parents. A church leader. A school counselor. A professional therapist. These people can help you. It might be hard for a while, but one day, you will be glad you lived. I promise.

      Love,

          Katelyn