Camp Pep: The Uphill Climb

Camp NaNoWriMo is nothing without you, our incredible participants. Today, Hazel Aspera , an author and fellow Camper, offers you some pep:

Dear Wrimos,

Five years ago, I trudged for miles up a dirt road on a jungle mountain with a pair of journalists chasing after a story. It was a two-hour walk uphill, across uneven, rocky terrain. The harsh tropical sunlight browned our skins and parched our throats as we slowly made our way to our destination, a small village in the middle of nowhere. There, we uncovered the unfolding drama of two feuding families trying to find peace. And the view wasn’t half bad, too.

When we got home from that trip, I found that writing about it felt like that uphill climb. The first mile or so was easy. Words materialized on my computer screen as if by magic, transcribing each thought, each conversation, each observation from my memory. I wrote a hundred words, and then a thousand, effortlessly.

But after a few days of writing, it started to become a chore. My mental muscle protested, just as my legs ached thirty minutes into that uphill climb. Now, it felt like writing any additional word took just as much effort as writing the first hundred had.

Looking back, I think writing the story was far more difficult than climbing that mountain. Up there in the jungle, it was move forward or be left behind. Each step became a test of how much I wanted this story. With each step, I told myself: I do want this story. I do, I do, I do.

With writing, however, it was all too easy to find a way out. All I had to do was press Alt+Tab and I would be magically transported from my mountain of words to the joyous land of Facebook and Netflix. And, before I knew it, several hours were wasted and my story left unconquered.

My dear Wrimos, I know you are now at this very point of writing your story. I urge you not to give in. Keep moving forward, whether you’re a thousand words away from your goal or forty thousand. As the saying goes, take it one step as a time. Each step doesn’t even have to be a good step.

If you need to resort to cheap tactics just to keep moving forward, so be it. Skip to another chapter. Write about the events that transpired before your story. Rewrite a scene in the point of view of another character. Write your villain’s overly dramatic ultimate speech about how evil always prevails. It may not look like it, but every single one of these words can move your story forward. Even if they, ultimately, will not make it into your final draft.

You’ll get there, I promise, no matter how insurmountable it seems right now. After all, I managed to make it back from that uphill climb alive. I even managed to publish a story about it, too.

Hazel Aspera is a registered nurse who left the hospital to write something more than just nurse’s notes. She is the Associate Director for Communications and a Junior Fellow for Fiction and Literary Essay of the Nagkahiusang Magsusulat sa Cagayan de Oro (United Writers of Cagayan de Oro). Her work has been published in the Cotabato Literary Journal and in the book, Peace Journeys: A Collection of Peacebuilding Stories in Mindanao.