Let's Write a Book
November has a big reputation. There’s No-Shave-November and Movember—so after the first of the month we expect to see a lot more fur on the faces of the guys in our lives. There’s Thanksgiving—so we enjoy a lot of food and think about what we’re thankful for. There’s also Black Friday—so a lot of us “enjoy” consumerism.
Today I wanted to talk about another event that happens all month long—National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. You sign up online, for free, and you participate in the month long goal of writing a novel—or at least getting a good start of one. The challenge is to write 50,000 words in the month, so that means an average of 1,667 words a day. It sounds like a lot (and to be honest, it’s not easy at first) but it’s doable.
I have a nasty habit of procrastinating, so I get down to the wire and end up having to pump out over 5,000 words a day. Which is more than a little crazy.
Last year was the first time I participated. I used it as a way of jumpstarting my thesis—which was projected to be a 120,000-word novel at the time. I thought that NaNoWriMo would be a good place to start. And it was! I wrote the 50,000 words in a month (or half a month, depending on how you really look at it…). This meant that I got to buy the Winners t-shirt. I’ve never been so exciting about spending money on a t-shirt.
I did it.
I accomplished this thing that sounded crazy.
So this year when I started getting emails from NaNoWriMo that the season was coming around again, I didn’t think twice about participating. I’m ready for another Winners t-shirt. I want to have a collection of them so someday I can tuck my grandkids into bed at night with a t-shirt quilt of my accomplishments. And I’ll be able to say that each shirt in the quilt equals 50,000 words. How cool will that be?
I also knew from working on my thesis that I am capable of binge writing. Binge writing is when you spend a weekend cranking out more words than you did all week—or month, as the case may be. It may not produce the smoothest first draft, but that’s what first drafts are for, right?
For whatever reason, I have a hard time carving out time during the week to sit down and write. I end up staking out my place on the couch for the weekend and doing a week’s worth of work in a couple days. Sometimes I stare at this sign my mom gave me last year as I wrapped up my thesis.
I like it because it not only reminds me to put my head down and get the work done, but it also features an owl wearing a crown on top of a typewriter. I dig it.
I find that making mini goals while binge writing is helpful. After 500 words I get to eat that leftover piece of pie. After 500 words I get to watch that YouTube video my friend sent me. After 500 words I get to hunt around on Pinterest for a while. Or today, after 500 words I get to write my Reflection Sunday post. (I really think my blog posts should go towards my total word count, I spend a lot of time on these!)
So that’s why I’m sitting here, the day before the finish line, trying to pound out over 6,000 words. If I could get to 10,000 today, that would be better since I do have to work tomorrow. So far I’ve written 2,577 words today, and that means I only have 9,400 words left, total! It’s exciting to watch the bar graph grow each time you put in a new word count.
That’s probably the best thing about NaNoWriMo. It gives you a visual for how many words you’ve written so you can physically see how much you’ve done. I can look at the bottom of a document and see that I’ve written a total of 50 pages, but what does that mean? It feels so abstract that it’s hard to visualize very well.
This year I’m working on the sequel to my thesis.
NaNoWriMo has been the perfect thing to get me going on writing again. I graduated with my MFA and big plans of getting my thesis published some day along with a couple short stories I wrote. But when I got home at the end of July and got ready to go back to work in August, I felt drained. Burnt out. I had been going for so long and so hard that I needed a breather, time to step back.
So here we are. Another National Novel Writing Month almost down in the books as a success (don’t you worry, I’ll be finishing this up and getting it submitted tomorrow). I can’t wait to see what next year brings.
