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You need to know truth before you can speak it.

Despite all of my intentions, I did not write an entire novel last month. I did write part of one, and I came away from Camp NaNo with a few lessons learned.

These aren’t lessons about how to write fiction. The world is full of trained professionals who can teach you the basics of character, plot, style, and grace. What I want to explore is energy.

Writing is work, and work takes energy. But energy comes in different forms, and within the layers of creative energy you'll find the spiritual, the intellectual, and the physical.

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Spiritual Energy

(intuition, insight, truth)

This is what we call inspiration. While it might seem strange to use the word truth in the context of fiction writing, the essence of truth that we put into our words is what brings them to life on the page.

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Intellectual Energy

(reason, problem solving, logic)

This is what you will find in all of those articles that tell you how to write. The structural designs and conscious choices made in planning out fiction fall into this category.

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Physical Energy

(application, ability, action)

This is where your work solidifies into form. Essence and design are both abstract until the metaphorical pen meets the paper and a story is born into the world.

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These energies need to work in harmony, and they need to work in both directions. Physical energy is the foundation and the result. Spiritual energy is the source and the goal. Intellectual energy is the medium through which the two can communicate.

A bit of a primer on Camp NaNo - it’s a very intellectual exercise. The website allows you to track your project's current word count and provides you with a guideline of exactly how many words you’ll need to write per day in order to finish by the end of the month. Well aware of the need to save a bit of my physical energy for my day job, I planned and I plotted my hours to schedule the best use of my writing time.

So what happened? That energy was spent. Not as spiritual energy, the type that opens imagination, but rather locked into a pure intellectual current that brought me to the realization that the more I thought about writing, the more distant I became from the story I wanted to write.

My spiritual self rebelled. As thoughts of word counts turned exhausting, she ran away from the intellect to bond with the physical alone. I’ll be honest, spending a month disconnected was a welcome respite. I felt bad at first, knowing I would fail the novel writing challenge, but once I made peace with that fact, I was able to indulge in the pure luxury of spending my free time with myself.

Letting my spiritual energy guide me, I took long walks in the sun, and as the weeks passed, I glanced at my phone less and less. I meditated, stretched out my muscles, and smiled as all of these things became infinitely more fascinating than writing a single word.

I didn’t win Camp NaNo, but I did refresh my inspiration. Beyond all of the tips and tricks for How To Write A Novel, I’m more fully aware of what made me start in the first place: the ever-present desire to create something real.

In that, turning my creative retreat into a personal sabbatical became more valuable than I ever expected.

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