NaNoWriMo: The day before
Am I counting down the hours? Maybe.
Photo courtesy of the NaNoWriMo website.
“I think Steve King said ‘read, read, read and write, write, write.’ I would also add ‘keep your butt in that chair.’”
National Novel Writing Month. The month that keeps writers awake at night, the month where a 50,000-word, jumbled piece of crap magically comes flying out of us at warp speed, ready to see the world in its deliciously unedited form.
Do I enjoy NaNoWriMo? Yes. Am I looking forward to its start tomorrow? No, not in the slightest.
Sorry, let me clear a few things up. I love writing. Like, I LOVE it. But I love it more so in its beautiful aftermath. I love printing out my stories and splaying them in front of me and taking a pen to them, giving them a physical form in order to be reborn, I love watching people read what I write, I love the act of crafting a sentence that can send shivers down someone’s spine. But do I love a hellish month dedicated to making people with full-time jobs and other commitments crank out ~2,000 words per day, in the hopes of becoming a “winner,” having a first draft (or part of a first draft) under their arm, all while sweating for next year and doing it all over again? I mean, yeah, but also no, I do not.
Idk, I found this just through googling, I’ve seen it in a lot of places.
Okay, in all seriousness, NaNoWriMo is a great time. There can be a lot of stress associated with it, but considering that it’s totally optional and that there’s no penalty or prize for losing or winning, it is a great motivator to get writers doing what their title suggests — to write.
The amount of time I spend thinking about my WIP versus actually working on it is…shameful. A lot of thought has to go into planning a novel, obviously, but I spend a disproportionate amount of time just imagining fun things my main characters would say or do that won’t actually advance the plot or clear up some things I’m genuinely struggling with. So, I’m grateful that NaNoWriMo is here, yet again, to whip me into shape and get writing. Because, otherwise, who knows if it would genuinely ever get done?
That's what happened last year with NaNoWriMo for me. I wrote my forthcoming novel, Just Us, which is set to be published with The Main Street Rag Publishing Company sometime next year. Before I decided to take the leap into NaNoWriMo, I didn’t have the motivation to make a detailed outline, and I’d only written several variations of the first chapter, all without a clear idea of where I wanted this half-formed mess of a story idea to go. At that point, I wasn’t sure if writing was for me. I was only writing poetry on the side, not even getting published in journals, and convinced that I would spend the rest of my days working in government contracting.
We’ve truly come a long way since then.
To be honest, if I win NaNoWriMo or not this year doesn’t really matter for me. I’ve gotten a lot better about outlining my stories and actually writing them. Just over the past few months, I’ve written four short stories, planned nearly an entire novel, and spent a lot of time and energy applying to graduate programs in creative writing. When I spoke to my therapist the other day, we agreed that I’ve made a lot of progress in feeling stable and in control of my life. I’ve also gotten a lot better at actually getting shit done.
My plan for NaNoWriMo at the moment is to schedule approximately three hours of writing time per day. I highly doubt I will actually write for three hours per day, but it’s good for me to have that segmented time to write. Maybe it seems a bit anal since I schedule my 9-5 workdays down to the minute, but it’s super useful for me. I’ve written 20 pages in my November short story for my Patreon subscribers in the past week doing this.
So am I looking forward to NaNoWriMo? Nah. But I’m grateful for it. Because without it, I don’t think I’d be where I am today.
Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? Be sure to send me a buddy request (@mperrismith) so we can follow along with each other’s progress!
Don’t forget to check out my Patreon, as well! If you’re super interested in learning about my WIP, TGOFT, I release monthly sneak peeks and inside looks at character profiles, outlining, and chapter excerpts and quotes. The other tiers offer a monthly short story and a handwritten letter and poem mailed directly to you. If there’s something else you’re interested in seeing on my Patreon, let me know!
As always, thanks for reading. Oh, and Happy Halloween! Are you dressing up? Staying out until witching hour? Stay spooky (and safe, ofc). Chat with all of you soon.
