It being November is especially hard on US people with any kids or large active families, dealing with big Thanksgiving plans.
No matter how well you plan, you really only get two meaningful weeks before the wall hits you. "Just set a reasonable word count to hit every day!" Then each day you miss days because your side dish plans went sideways or your flights get rescheduled, making the goal steeper every other day.
"Use your travel time to write more!" Almost impossible with young kids without sticking a spouse or relative with watching them, and the resentment of even asking if you can ignore kids to write lasts a hell of a lot longer than November.
"You can catch up after Thanksgiving!" Not after anti-vax Aunt J gives your family the gift of some great new viral disease that hits in the last week.
There are writing sprints in other months that never seem to have the community of NaNo, and all your single or childless writer friends burn it all out during NaNo. The community is a big part of what makes it fun, otherwise it's just an arbitrary chore goal.
December is not any better. There's nothing like hating your family and their dumb "let's be together and make happy, everlasting memories" ideas when all you want is to debug your A* algorithm for the Advent of Code.
No matter how well you plan, you really only get two meaningful weeks before the wall hits you. "Just set a reasonable word count to hit every day!" Then each day you miss days because your side dish plans went sideways or your flights get rescheduled, making the goal steeper every other day.
"Use your travel time to write more!" Almost impossible with young kids without sticking a spouse or relative with watching them, and the resentment of even asking if you can ignore kids to write lasts a hell of a lot longer than November.
"You can catch up after Thanksgiving!" Not after anti-vax Aunt J gives your family the gift of some great new viral disease that hits in the last week.
There are writing sprints in other months that never seem to have the community of NaNo, and all your single or childless writer friends burn it all out during NaNo. The community is a big part of what makes it fun, otherwise it's just an arbitrary chore goal.