NaNoWriMo (Didn't) Eat My Hobbies

The Dawnbringer Dragon. My way of relaxing after a NaNo stint.

When I first thought about NaNoWriMo, I wondered how I'd ever get anything else done in November. Writing 50' 000 words takes a lot of time. Would I still have time to read, and do craft? Would I be able to continue blogging? Most of what I heard told me I couldn't.

Then I started NaNo. After pounding away at my computer keyboard for hours. I suddenly realised I didn't want to write any more that day. I wanted to do something else. And so I left my writing, which was well over the required word count, and amused myself by reading. And blogging.

Over the past three or four days, I've come to realise that NaNo hasn't eaten all my other activities. I'm still reading and drawing, doing craft and blogging. I want to do these things because I need a break from writing. NaNo, while time consuming and busy, is teaching me to enjoy my hobbies and free time more, because I need it more.

NaNo hasn't eaten my life. Thanks to a flexible homeschooling schedule, I can write during school time. Thanks to that, I have a million, billion words written. And I still have time to do the things I love. Far from doing less in November, I feel I'm doing more.

Has NaNoWriMo eaten your life? Or do you, like me, find yourself doing more, just to rest from all that frenzied writing?