What is NaNoWriMo?
NaNoWriMo stands for
National Novel Writing Month, which occurs in November each year. It’s a
program designed for writers (or would-be writers or never-before writers or
anyone who wants to give it a go) to aim and accomplish the goal of writing a
novel in a month (or 50,000 words of it). By signing up, you can use the
website to set milestones, record progress, and interact with other writers on
the same journey.
Goal-setting and Storyline
NaNoWriMo creates a great opportunity for
writers to reach a word count goal. For some, it means dedicating some time to
that their current Work-In-Progress, for others it’s a chance to write
something new they’ve been thinking about, for some it’s an opportunity to try writing
something for the very first time, and for a few it might be a chance to
challenge oneself and start November with a prompt and a story they’ve never
thought about before and just START WRITING.
The Experience
My first (and only) NaNoWriMo was in 2017.
I’d always wanted to participate but I was always editing and didn’t want to
interrupt what I was doing. When I made the decision to go ahead with it, it
was like setting an appointment or making a to-do list of household chores – except
it was for me. Making the decision to do NaNoWriMo was a strange form of
self-care I hadn’t expected. I set and dedicated time to my art, my
goals, my craft. Writing is very important to me, and yet, it never
seems to be as important as cleaning the house, going to that birthday
dinner, getting on top of work tasks. It was a strange kind of freedom to prioritise
my writing goals and make it important.
As I signed up and gave myself a very
clever nickname that only I would get, I explored the NaNoWriMo website as if I
was just accepted into an exclusive club. I set my region, which meant I could read
and participate in forums with people in my region – and be in the loop about
upcoming events (yes, there are events).
There are plenty of bits and pieces to do
on the website, that will help you achieve your goals and connect to others. You
can create projects, connect with buddies, earn badges, track progress and more.
After exploring, I started to get more and
more excited about the program, the writing as well as the community. I don’t
usually use forums but unlike random yahoo answers or reddit pages, other
participants aren’t there to cut you down or prove you wrong. I only ever found
support and interesting discussion topics. I even ventured far out of my
comfort zone and attended the ‘Kick-Off Event’. They also have ‘Write-Ins’ to
attend but I decided attending the Kick-Off was enough for shy little me (one
step at a time). I met an interesting group of people at the Kick-Off event,
from newbies to NaNoWriMo veterans. They were different ages and had different
stories that brought them to the event, and they all were willing to discuss what
they were going to write about. One writer had never written before but had
great interest in Dungeons and Dragon stories and thought NaNoWriMo was a great
opportunity to explore that (he wasn’t wrong). Another used NaNoWriMo to write
something she had never before written or considered writing: romance. Another
had this great idea that was a comedy/fantasy story.
Even before I’d started writing. NaNoWriMo
had me excited about writing, excited for November and inspired by the ideas
and success of others.
The Writing Part
NaNoWriMo has a goal: 50,000 words. But I had
my own personal goal in mind. A lot of consideration went into planning what
I would write and I don’t mean plotting (that came later). I really wanted
to dedicated NaNoWriMo to one project, one that I could start and finish
in November. There was a story I had been thinking about for a couple of months
and I thought it would be perfect for NaNoWriMo because A) it was a children’s
story with an estimated finishing word count of 60,000 and B) it gave me
permission to write something out of my usual writing realm.
However, I was already working my way
through a project and didn’t want to disrupt my momentum to do NaNoWriMo. I
therefore decided that (I) I would begin my new story for NaNoWriMo and (II) I
would finish my current project before November,
even though it was late October and I had an estimated 60,000 words before it
was finished.
Spoiler, I did not complete my ‘before’
project, although I did complete my estimated word count, just turns out it
wasn’t enough.
Although I didn’t get my work done before
November, I still paused and began my new project. I didn’t like pausing
(and, in fact, it’s quite a while later and I still have not gone back to complete
it), but I had promised myself this new story and even if I hadn’t finished
I had accomplished my goal.
I had already written 8,000 words of the
new book, months prior to November when the idea first came to me, and I wanted
to accomplish at least the 50,000 words in November. I set my goal at 60,000
words for the whole project, to make sure I could hit that 50,000 and then
some. I also thought 60,000 was a good length to complete the whole (children’s)
novel.
I then broke down my goals.
I figured a 60,000 word goal would come
down to doing 5000 words a day with plenty left over. I made sure I had at
least some kind of outline for NaNoWriMo. I’ve never been much of a planner,
but I knew the biggest risk to breaking momentum would be getting stuck on a
plot line.
I used an app called Wordly to track my
progress (which I highly recommend). Most days, I could do my 5000 words in the
two hours I set myself in the morning. However, there was no trace of editing
or rereading, there was barely even backspacing. I wrote in a way that I never
had before which was strange but fun. I blocked out outside noise and just wrote
the first words to come to me. There were many pros and cons to writing this
way. I was not writing quality writing, but I was getting it done fast.
The biggest con, obviously, was the large
number of mistakes and a lot of repetition. If I thought of a better way to
word the sentence, I simply wrote it beneath the original. I let all mistakes
be mistakes and just kept going. If something wasn’t working or I got stuck in
the plot, I changed direction and just kept going. I knew that if anyone but me
(or even me) read the first draft, it would make little to no sense. I knew I’d
have to make big changes during the editing process but it was worth it to accomplish
what I had done. I barely had a break, and what I was writing was, well,
garbage, but editing was for later.
Despite the overall quality of the
writing, I found it much more immersive. I was completely in my book and
in my head and, in a little way, I feel that made the story better, even if the
prose needed extensive work. It also meant that I had no room for writers block
and simply got it done. There was also a hidden pro I hadn’t expected. During
my writing stints where I was completely immersed in just writing I
wrote sentences that just came to me, without working them over and over in my
head and I later found they were quite good. Finally returning and
rereading the writing (and although, yes, there were plety of errors), I came across
some beautiful phrased sentences and thought: wow, did I write that? It’s
lovely. I don’t remember though.
Writing this way, furiously, like some
kind of violent machinery, I smashed my NaNoWriMo goal – with time to spare. I
hit my daily 5,000 word goals in (most of the time) the two hours I set aside
to write. If I didn’t do it in my time slot, I caught up (which meant cutting
into my reading time so I wasn’t happy), and on weekends I did a little extra
when I could.
By the 11th of November, I was
finished: 56,5621 words written in that time.
I was pretty happy but the downside to
this was the crash that occurred afterward. I didn’t immediately return to my
first project and it is now 2019, almost time to do NaNoWriMo again, and I have
not gone back to finish the first project and I have not once gone back to edit
the second (although I have read parts for my own enjoyment).
NaNoWriMo gave me permission to put
writing first and accomplish goals I maybe never would have done otherwise. I
also pushed myself and discovered what I can actually do when given the right
tools. It was liberating, allowing myself to make a ridiculous amount of
errors, and sometimes it easier to commit to editing a finished project then it
is to finishing a project, and this was a quick, intense way to finish.
I’ll write a post when I finally get
around to reading the garbage.
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