Oct 10
30
Writing a novel is one of those things that almost everyone wants to do, but for whatever reason, they don’t ever try. They are too busy, think their ideas are bad, don’t want to mess with all of the rejection, etc. The answer to these problems?
NaNoWriMo.
What? What is NaNoWriMo? It stands for National Novel Writing Month. And the purpose is for each person to write 50,000 words in one month (it is currently every November). You pack away your internal editor (we call him Ed) for the month, and just write. It may not be quality work (probably won’t be), but the purpose is to spew out a novel in a month. You can spend the next year revising and editing it (hello Ed!), but for now, you focus on word count. It allows for people to write without all of the fears and second guessing that most people have when they write anything. And, at the end of the month, you can say that you wrote a novel. How cool is that?
I have heard of this before, but never was motivated enough to look into it until this October. I was actually amazed that is was coming up so soon (I have a tendency to find these things immediately after the fact). So I signed up. At that point I had almost no plans for November, and other than the fact that it is a brutal month to be working in the retail world, I had plenty of time to write.
Of course, that was bound to change. For someone who has no life, I suddenly am very busy. I am rather intimidated by the month, and yet anxious to start. You cannot write a word before November 1st, and being just over a day away, and knowing this week will be insane (actually going on a trip for a week… bad timing), I am itching to write now, when I have a fighting chance of making the 1667 word/day rate. Never mind the fact that I only have two vague ideas, which I cannot decide between (a cliche that will probably be easier to write, or the novel that would be unique and based on my academic dissertations but I am less interested in). Neither idea has a plot to go along with it. For someone who has written three thesis papers in her life, I am going into this pretty unprepared.
Some of the impetus for this is that my 30th birthday is approaching (ancient, I know). So, of course, I have been examining my life to date, and started thinking more about the future. I, like many people, have a “Things To Do Before I Die” list (a Bucket List). One of the mistakes about those lists is that it is easy to put the To-Dos off, thinking you have all the time in the world to do them. But actually, being 30 is a great place to work on some of them. I don’t have a ton of obligations in my life right now, and so have some freedom to check things off the list. And “attempt to write a novel” is on it. (This is largely due to an academic adviser who, after reading my undergraduate honor’s thesis, asked me if I ever thought about writing children’s books. While I initially was rather devastated from that response to an academic work, she actually meant it in a positive way – she wanted to write children’s books herself. It was also surprisingly insightful, given my current feelings about academia).
So, this is my attempt to check an item off my life-long To-Do list. Whether anything comes of it doesn’t really matter. I may discover a hidden talent, or realize that writing is torture, but I can still boast that I did it. Before I turned 30. And it is completely free. Not many things on the list can claim that.
That is fantastic! I am super impressed and feel inspired by your inspiration. Good luck with it!