In Praise of NaNoWriMo

Previously posted on November 20, 2017

Let me say up front, I am a big fan of NaNoWriMo. If you are unfamiliar, it stands for the National Novel Writing Month which is November. Until a year ago, I had never heard of it myself. When my son told me about it, I was curious, but hesitant. I have always been a person who loves to write, but despite joking for years about someday retiring and writing the Great American Novel, I had serious doubts about my ability to write a novel, great or otherwise.

I write poetry. I write short stories. My one attempt at writing a (very short) young adult novel is still unfinished. I honestly feared that I did not have the right mindset to write a novel. I wasn’t sure that I could tell a long story. I was afraid that my desire to get to my really clever ending would keep me from ever being able to stretch my story to novel length. My other legitimate fear was that I couldn’t write 50,000 words in a single month. Not if they had to make sense.

But I was intrigued, so I went to the website (nanowrimo.org) and started reading. Maybe I could do this after all. I had a few weeks before it all began and I actually had an idea or two bouncing around in my head, so I did some research (on hypnosis) which led to some further research (on time travel) which led to some outlining and soon I was chomping at the bit to start writing.

I was retired, so I could not use time, or lack thereof, as an excuse, and on November 1, 2016, I started writing my first novel. My cat, Sophia and I listened to lots of classical music. (Anything with lyrics distracted me and made me want to sing along.) I kept a calendar taped to the wall by my computer, so I could keep up with my daily word count and I wrote, usually first thing in the morning. Right after my coffee, of course. Somewhere around 35,000 words, I had my first moments of panic. I was too close to the end of my story and there were too many days and too many words left to write. (The nanowrimo goal is 50,000, roughly the length of The Great Gatsby.)

I began to backtrack and added another complete subplot to the novel. A week later, I was confident that my ending and my word count would both be completed by November 30. And they were! I had written a novel and I give full credit to NaNoWriMo.