Sunday, November 1, 2009
Karen's Blog Site of the Week: NaNoWriMo!
Did you set your clocks back last night? Did you enjoy that extra hour of sleeping off your candy comas?
I spent the extra hour getting a jump start on writing.
For those of you that have been around my blog for awhile, and for those that have been around the blogosphere, you've probably heard that it's NaNoWriMo time.
Every November, thousands of writers from around the world join together to participate in National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.It's really not as bad as it sounds.
This is my fifth year participating.
Back in October of 2005 I went on a date with this really nice guy named Darren. I knew instantly that it wouldn't work out because our names rhymed, and there's already enough of that in my family.
(Plus, at the end of the date he went on and on about this girl he'd dated who had broken his heart over a year before and that he thought he was ready to date again but he really wasn't, etc, etc, etc.)
BUT, before he went all depressed and sad, we had a great conversation about our mutual love of writing. And he told me about this crazy thing he was doing in a few weeks. It was called NaNoWriMo.
I was intrigued.
I went to the website, looked around, and found myself signing up. That was October 24, 2005.
For the first two weeks, I didn't do much.
(You might not have heard that I'm a bit of a procrastinator...)
I typed a few words here and there, but I was nowhere near where I was "supposed" to be when the halfway point rolled around. I think I'd gotten to about the 10K mark. And then I figured that it was already a lost cause. I'd given it a shot, but it just wasn't for me.
Only, I knew that wasn't true. I knew NaNoWriMo was EXACTLY for me. And I knew I hadn't *really* given it a shot. I needed to put some effort in.
So about a week later, I got in gear and spent hours at the computer, pounding away on the keyboard. In my nearly-secluded cubicle at work, I'd write on whatever scratch paper I could find, and then go home and add the handwritten stuff to my word count.
On November 30, I was still 18,000 words short of my goal.
(That's something like 35 pages, depending on which font you use.)
I went to work, thinking that I had really tried to do it and I should be proud of all of the effort I had made in the last week.
I wondered if it was possible to type that much in one day.
I went to my boss and told her I had a headache.
She sent me home early and I got to work. And I finished those 18,000 words at 11pm. With one hour to spare, I won my first NaNoWriMo challenge.
And I've done it every year since.
Today is November 1st, and I've already gotten to work on this year's novel. I'm excited because this week I'll be getting together with some real-life friends that I first met online through the region pages.
(When you sign up, you can join a region based on where you live. You don't have to hang out with people from your region, but it's a lot of fun to do it.)
I haven't seen them in way too long, but I'm going to get together with them during November. And I can't wait.
There are still 29 3/4 days left of NaNoWriMo. If you have been thinking about giving it a try, I strongly urge you to just go for it. It's a challenge against yourself. If you don't make it, that's okay. But at least you'll know you gave it a shot. Sign up today and do it.
You won't regret it.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
24 comments:
"You know what they say. If you don't have anything nice to say about anybody, come sit by me."
~Clairee Belcher, Steel Magnolias