NaNoWriMo Take 1 - Writing 101 – Day 44

A good part of this blog has been to follow me as I flail ahead on my writing journey. The original idea of the blog had been to present my viewpoint on various issues but that thought died out. I guess I saw too many flame wars on Facebook, the country got more and more divided, and I realized that my voice wouldn’t be heard over the noise, and wouldn’t do much good to change anyone’s ideas anyways. It was a bit of a cynical viewpoint, and I may be more hopeful now. Who knows, maybe I will expound on my ideas at bit more in future posts. We shall see. I very much want us to come together as a nation, as a tribe, as a family. That seems harder and harder as opposing forces intentionally wedge us apart for their gain. There is too much financial and political profit in keeping us at each other’s throats. I am not sure how we fix it, how we heal. I wish I had an answer. I would post it daily and splatter it all over social media. Unfortunately, my only answer is to love each other and treat each other with kindness. Those are powerful words, but they are too gentle to be heard in a climate of crassness. Everyone wants to be the squeaky wheel and it has reached the point that we can’t hear each other over the cry of their grinding. (Two-hundred and fifty-six words.)

That brings us to the topic at hand. Rather than dive too deeply into The Great Divide, I am turning back to a topic that is much less divisive, writing and the writing world. This month is November and today starts a big event in the writing world, The National Novel Writing Month. If you are thinking this is just another one of those fake promotional months that someone made up, then you would be right. Someone made it up and, at its core, it doesn’t really many anything. But like any financial system, its value is in how much the people that use it value it. Ok, to be clear, it is not a financial system, it is something else. So, what is it? That’s a little easier to describe. (Three-hundred and ninety-one words.)

Our story starts back a few years. Some people got together and decided they wanted to encourage each other in their writing goals. You see, for a very long time writing was something that seemed like only a chosen few could do. Only the very elite could be successful at it. Whiling away their hours hoping that some publishing company would look down from their throne and reach out to one of the poor struggling authors and lift them our of obscurity and into the world of “real authors”. This was an exhausting and nigh impossible task, akin to becoming a professional athlete or astronaut. It was dreamed of by many, accomplished by few, and forever out of reach to the masses. (Five-hundred sixteen words.)

Then, everything changed. Digital publishing arrived, and with it, the spread of indie publishing. Now anyone with the ability to get on the internet could write something and get it published on one of the major digital book distribution sites. This blew the doors off of everything. Suddenly it was possible for anyone to be a writer. I imagine it felt like what a lot of people felt when they first saw average people in a rock band. Oh, you don’t have to be a professional? You mean anyone can do it? It was an eye-opening experience. The people that jumped on the bandwagon right away began making good money. Soon everyone saw how wonderful it was to publish their own writing. And with that, the indie publishing world took off. (Six-hundred and fifty-one words.)

With this sudden ability to be an author, there was an explosion in people trying to be successful at it. Everyone thought they could be the Next, Big, Thing. There was only one thing they forgot. Writing is hard. I mean, really hard. You have to work at it and even people that claim to enjoy it, admit that it is a lot of work. Most of us don’t enjoy the actual writing. We enjoy thinking about what we are going to write, and we enjoy looking at what we have written, but the nuts and bolts of doing it? That is hard work. As hard as it was people started getting bogged down in the reality of it all. They would start out with a full head of steam, but then life would kick in, and they would peter out. Hard drives around the world were full of stories that had been started, sprouted, but never watered to fruition. Half-novels and abandoned novellas littered the landscape. It was a sad, sad time. (Eight-hundred and twenty-eight words.)

That’s when someone with a calculator had a bright idea. They realized that the average novel is comprised of 50,000 words. If you divide that by 30 you get roughly 1,667 words. That is an achievable goal. If someone were to sit down and write a minimum of 1,667 words every day for the month of November, they would have the first draft of their novel. It’s quite simple really. I mean, what else are you going to do in November? Christmas shopping? Cook a turkey? Nah, cash it all in and write a novel. And so, that’s what they did, and they began telling others about it. (Nine-hundred and forty words.)

That brings us to today. There is a website (https://nanowrimo.org/) and a 501c3 organization.. There are writing sprints and online badges. There are buddies and meetups. It is a whole thing, and if you are a writer, chances are you have heard of it. It has become a big deal. Cafes across the country are full of writers, dusting off old stories and pounding keyboards and coffee, trying to hit their daily word count. Like many things worth doing in life, it is fun and terrifying, exciting and exhilarating and just a little overwhelming. It is not for the faint of heart, but there is a lot of encouragement along the way. Many people fail and either burnout, or try to cram all 50, 000 words into the last few days. Either way, it is a way to take time in your life and focus on your writing. For most writers, this is a welcome reminder to do the thing they love to do. (One thousand, one-hundred and ten words)

I’ve known about NaNoWriMo for quite a while. I had heard of it, been to the website, everything, but it just seemed too overwhelming and intimidating for me. I like to write, but that is a bit much. I was sure I could never do anything like that. Besides, I didn’t really have a novel idea I was working on. I would put off that challenge until later, when I was more serious about writing. The problem with later, is that it never comes. You put something off long enough, you wake up realizing that it is too late. I have done that before in my life and, as I looked back at the things I didn’t do, I decided that I didn’t want this to join that list. So I decided to not wait any longer. I would go for it this year. (One thousand, two-hundred and fifty-nine words.)

So here I am, writing my first piece for NaNoWriMo. Except, technically, I’m doing it wrong. You see, it is called National Novel Writing Month, not National Write-A-Blog-Post-Or-Whatever-Other-Darn-Fool-Thing-You-Want-To. I am supposed to be writing a novel. It is supposed to be a first draft, not paying attention to punctuation or polish or anything like that. That would be great, but then I would have to start a new novel. That is not where I am at. So I decided to start where I was instead of where I am supposed to be. The question then is, where am I? (One thousand, three-hundred and sixty-four words.)

Where am I? Well the good news is that I have quite a few things to write. First of all, I promise no more blog posts that are this long. When I started writing this, I had no idea how long 1,667 words was going to be. I could have written a novel in this amount of writing (irony intended.) I do intend to regularly post blogs this month, probably more than I have ever done before, but they will not be my only word count for the day. They will be driven by the length of what I have to say, not the minimum number of words I need to write. I also have several pieces that I intend to submit in the month of December. I need to get those written and ready. They will go towards my word count of the day as well. Finally, the big project. (One thousand, five hundred and twenty-two words.)

The whole purpose of NaNoWriMo is to get a project that has been languishing on the shelf off the back burner and into production. In the spirit of the month, I have decided to make my own personal goal for this month. I am going to drag the Nicholas Tales, kicking and screaming, through the editing process and into its final edit form. I won’t have all the illustrations or a cover ready in time for this Holiday Season, but, I am determined to get the writing part of it done. I can’t think of any better way to celebrate this month than finishing it off with my first book done, and ready for publishing. It will be a fulfillment of a long-awaited dream come true. (One thousand, six hundred and fifty-five words.)

I am sure there are going to be bumps in the road, and many days I come up short. I am sure I am going to fail at some of the goals I set for myself. I am hoping, though, that by the end of this month, I will have a writing habit established and be well-on my way to being a better writer, with a book ready to publish. That is a goal worth going after. So I start of this month with one goal met, and many others in my sights. Here’s to a month of at least, 1,667 words a day. (One thousand, seven-hundred and sixty-seven words, including title.)