Overwhelmed again

This month I signed on to complete the National Novel WRiting Month challenge: 50,000 words in 30 days. I thought it would give me inspiration and motivation to write. Instead, I gave myself a big dose of pressure to perform. The words coming off the end of my pen and into the computer are banal, trivial, compostable, trite and just plain shitty! Well, Natalie Goldberg in her book WRiting Down the Bones says you have to write a lot of shitty first drafts. So far I have 10,000 words - about one-fifth of them usable. Never mind. I'm going to hold on to what my mentor Dhanya Haremboure taught me - there are no mistakes in life, only learning. So I've learned that I don't want to write to a deadline and if I'm going to complete my book I will have to do it because it's important to me. Accepting a challenge to write words gives me permission to do only that--write words. Accepting a challenge to finish my book will give me the motivation to create something of lasting importance. It's back to three morning pages for me -

Consider these writing prompts:

What challenges do you want to accept?

What motivates you to perform?

This month I want to ....

In thirty days I could....

Post your responses if you like. Let me know how writing process works in your life.

Have a happy month whatever you choose to do.