I got just over 28,000 words. If I hadn’t been aiming for 50,000 then I would have called that a good month, but I fell off the writing wagon. I spent exactly one minute on self pity, then I let that go, because despite the fact that I didn’t hit my goal I still got a lot out of that month.

What’s more, as a result November and NanoWriMo are going like you wouldn’t believe. I’ve averaged 2,022 words per day and I don’t think things would be going nearly as well. Of course not all of Novembers current happiness is down to my abject failure in October. I’ve also got a few other bloggers to thank for actually getting my act together.

First up, Carrie Heim Binas has an excellent writing advice blog. If you’re doing NanoWriMo, then you owe it to yourself to go and check out Heim Binas Fiction.

You probably all know Mur Lafferty of I Should Be Writing, but if you don’t and you need a kick in the pants to inspire you, an intelligent mind to advise you or some of the best interviews available online to keep you interested in writing then I Should Be Writing is the place to go.

Want to know just how good a podcasted novel can be, then go check out JC Hutchins’ website and join the clone army. His novel 7th Son: Descent has just gone into print, and it’s beyond good. If you go to the site, you can listen to the whole thing for free. While you’re there check out Project 777 for a good cause that gets you goodies while you’re at it.

I need to get back to work, but if you’re floundering on your novel, or you just want to see some damn good blogs, go check out the authors above, you won’t be sorry.

You heard me.

As a writer, you’re going to fail at your goals sometime. I’m not trying to be depressive about it, it’s just that sometimes life gets in the way. If you catch fire I would expect you to put it out before getting on with chapter three.

It could happen.

The point of all of this is not that I failed to write 20,000 words, or even that I cooked my brain like a Christmas turkey. It’s that I got out 8,000 words, which is significantly more than I normally write (I usually go for 3 to 4 thousand words over a weekend). If I hadn’t gone for the big score, I wouldn’t have gotten 8,000 words out as a kind of failure by-product.

So lesson one in failing right is: Dream Big.

 If you don’t set a big goal, you have no chance of achieving it. Even if you don’t hit that big goal straight off, if it’s big enough, there’s always the chance you’ll get something worthwhile out of it anyway.

Like 8,000 words.

Of course, if I’d set myself a goal that was too big, like finish my first draft by the end of the weekend, I wouldn’t have done anything at all. You need to dream big, but it needs to be theoretically possible to hit your goal. As much as I joke about setting myself the impossible goal of finishing a first draft by the end of the month, it’s more than possible.

That make lesson two: Think difficult, not impossible.

I blog about these thing sin the hope that other people can learn from my mistakes, but I try not to give myself too much grief about the mistakes themselves. Of course I’m disappointed if I don’t get a goal, but being angry at yourself is a waste of energy you could be putting into your writing.

If being angry helps you write; by all means go nuts, but as soon as your writing is done with, put the anger away too. I’ve really made myself suffer in the past by being overly hard on myself for making mistakes. This is your writing, your novel. A mistake is not a tragedy because tomorrow, you can do some more writing.

Lesson Three is the big one: Learn from your mistakes, and then LET IT GO.

I’m on track to finish my first draft by the end of the month, and in part that’s because I haven’t let my innate ability to fail get in my way. If you check on all of your favourite authors, they’ve screwed up more than once on their way to becoming great writers.

Failure is temporary; it can’t stop you unless you let it. Now get writing.