Is National Novel Writing Month the problem or a symptom

 It amazes me the clarity a headache can sometimes give you.  My sinuses and I are at war today in this dry autumn air.  As a result, I don't have the level of patience  that I usually would have.

When I got up today, I went over my schedule to organize my workflow for the day.  Since I decided to take part in National Novel Writing Month, high on my list was to hit my word count for the day.  That is not what I wanted to do.

As the resistance mounted against me, I focused my attention on why I didn't want to write.

That was just the thing.  My problem isn't that I don't want to write.  The problem is I want to play in the setting.  I want to explore, frolicking in all the nooks and crannies that the world presents me.  So, in reality, it is not that I don't want to write, it is  yet again the constraints of the novel are working against the kind of story I want to tell.

Over and over, I tell myself that I'm going to break out of the mold of the novel, and time and again I force myself back into it.  It is comfortable, familiar.  I know how to do that, and as such it is the easy way out.

I have to stop taking the easy way out.

So, for me, National Novel Writing Month is both the problem and the symptom.  I'm not writing a novel, so why am I trying to make it fit the format?  I need to refocus, and plan my way forward.  Something different is trying to be born through me.  I just need to get out of its way.