NaNoWriMo and Me

Franz Kafka stayed here between 1916 and 1917. 

Despite identifying myself as a writer since….basically I could put pen to paper, I first heard (or is it paid attention to?) nanowrimo (National Novel Writing Month) about a month ago. The idea is basically to take the whole month of November and just write, the goal being a 50,000 minimum word novel. There are many polarizing opinions out there on if nanowrimo actually does any good, because if you’re rushing to write a minimum 50,000 word novel in just one month, what kind of cohesive story actually comes from that? Then again, the nanowrimo organization does suggest this is just the first draft, and the intent is to not make it perfect, but to finish it, something many, many aspiring writers fail to do (myself included). For the first time in my life I’m going to start writing with the intent of ending the project, not just writing a paragraph here or there when I feel like it or I’m bored and want to get out of my world for a bit.

This will probably mean I’ll have to actually put down my books; my current re-read of J.R. Ward’s the Black Dagger Brotherhood will hopefully be over, and I’ll have to hide my new Kay Hooper and Iris Johansen books as well as any other books I might purchase between now and November 1^st. There was a period a few months ago where I wasn't reading at all, felt almost like I was burned out on reading, but then I went back to my normal reading and re-reading habits. I was worried there for a couple weeks though that I might never really want to read again. First time in, I think my lifetime, that I’d not been compelled to read something/anything. Lately it’s been re-reading mostly, but I think that has a lot to do with budget constraints. Eh, I don’t mind, it’s why I buy books instead of borrowing; for the re-reading factor.

In just over two weeks though I’ll be putting down my books (or at least mostly) in favor of writing. November has 30 days, so that’s, let’s see – 1,667 words/day. I would say that sounds harsh, but with these two and a half paragraphs I already have approximately 378 words, so that’s about 10-11 paragraphs a day. Which, knowing me, I won’t write every day, but the days I do write, I’ll kick out definitely more than needed. The main three things I’ll need to focus on are Starting, Dedication and Wrapping Up.

• Starting – I have a definitely story in mind, but so far it’s just the concept, so taking the concept and creating a real story out of it, won’t be easy. If I don’t get an idea of where I want to go with the idea, then my characters will just be people doing things, but not going anywhere.
• Dedication – the writing itself won’t be the hard part for me, but “finding” the time to sit down and make myself write? Yeah, that’s the difficulty. There’s always something else I could be doing. Reading a good book…spending time with my dogs…cooking….cleaning…volunteer work…etc. I’m sure day one I’ll be fine, but it’s those days afterwards that I’m worried about. Will I get too bored? When I was in my teens I had probably 10 stories going at the same time and I’d just sit down and write in the world I wanted to play in at the moment…which is probably a large part of why none of them ever got finished.
• Wrapping Up – I’m going to have a hard time with Starting, I don’t think I’ll have as much of a hard time with the Dedication, simply because I know in advance I’m only “pushing” myself this hard for one month. The problem will come from how to wrap it up. But, I think I’ll do “okay” as long as I can get the “where do I want to take this?” down.

The Starting basically goes with Wrapping Up, in a sense that as soon as I get the concept of where I want to take my story, I’ll be on track with Wrapping Up, at least I’ll know at what point I can start Wrapping Up.

Now for the real accomplishment; I started off this year doing really well with exercising and being active. But, with the advent of an Arizona summer (think 120⁰ weather), that slowed down quite a bit (even though my guest room has an elliptical, with a TV!). What I’d like to do in this month of November is get back into the exercise routine. Learn how to balance more than one thing at a time. For every page I write, walk one (of my three) dogs a mile or ride my bike two miles - something, anything, like that. Hopefully, I’ll be doing all of that more that I’m writing anyway. We still have more than just a few days left in October, so I’ll starting up my biking routine once again and getting my dogs out more.

Between nanowrimo and getting back into a routine of exercising, I’m actually not afraid of losing my photography time or my photography study time. Currently I think I’m far enough along in understanding the basics, that if I do end up taking a break it won’t hurt too much, instead I think what’ll happen is when I want to take a break from writing, I’ll jump into the photography.

November is going to be a great month this year! As the month starts and proceeds I’ll do my best to post at least one blog on how it’s going. Wish me luck!