NaNoWriMo, Day 18

I am struggling HARD this year.

I'm exactly at par right now. I'm getting hundreds -- not thousands -- of words done on work days, and have written maybe five words today -- my day off. I had hoped to write 3k today, but I just don't have the mental energy.

I keep going back to LinkedIn, looking for jobs, looking for connections, looking for anything that will get me out of this hellhole job that I'm currently trapped in. This is quite literally eating my life. My marriage is failing and I am almost convinced it's work stress that's making me an ineffective marriage partner.

On top of that, somebody tipped off the NaNoWriMo Board about the moderation drama that's been going on all year THIS month, of all months, and got all the forums shut down for all users during the LITERAL ANNUAL EVENT THAT THE FORUMS ARE THERE FOR. I've never been a huge forum presence, but I have a couple threads that I'm active in and not having the forums there for support and encouragement has almost killed my writerly will to live. I understand why they did it, I do. Moderation is, apparently, a dumpster fire (I have not witnessed any of this, but I've been hearing others complain about it all year) so in order to 'suspend' mod activities and sort out the allegations, they had to also suspend the forums lest it become the Wild West. But in an already-difficult time in my life where I am feeling extremely unsupported and unheard both personally and professionally, this is the straw that has broken this camel's back. Even if everything is sorted out, I really don't know if I will do NaNoWriMo next year. I understand the Board is doing their best and I do appreciate their efforts to sort it out and make it right as best they can but I'm just done having all my support systems taken away from me and this has left a really bad taste in my mouth. NaNoWriMo made me a writer and for that I will always be grateful. I have nothing bad to say about the event. But I don't know if I have the strength to put myself through this again, and that breaks my heart. I loved this place. But I feel it didn't love us back.

I'm so tired. I've had a headache for *checks notes* eighteen days now.

Even my story feels dead. I guess it matches my soul right now. I loved the concept of it, but I'm struggling with execution, as I did with last year's story. Both years I've had amazing ideas that I really loved, but was completely bored of the story as I wrote it. I don't remember feeling this before with any of the previous eighteen NaNo-related works I've written.

Is it a sign that I need to pause writing rough drafts and focus on editing these into actual published works? Maybe. I have easily five drafts that are very workable candidates for eventual publication. But I do want to finish this one. Only 20k left to go. It's still very doable, but only if work and marriage stress don't drown me first.

I hate that this is the NaNoWriMo experience I'm having. Even before the forum shutdown, I was struggling mightily. I'm so tired. I'm so done. Even with an outline, I can't seem to get from point A to point B. I honestly wonder if I would have been better off not making an outline at all. It's not stifling me, per se... I think the outline itself is just not interesting enough to me at the moment, especially with everything else draining me of hope. Writing used to be a welcome escape for me, but it's not working anymore. And that hurts a lot.