Get Your NaNoWriMo On!

I can't believe it, but I'm going to do it again-- participate in NaNoWriMo. After last year, I promised myself that was it for me. Who decides to write 50,000 words in 30 days? If that wasn't enough, Thanksgiving was in November, and November was the month before Christmas. But I'm a writer and bipolar, so what the heck.

My 16 year-old daughter asked, "So... what do you get for doing this?"

"A certificate," I said.

"Oh..." she said, nodding and looking at me as though she was waiting for the rest of the answer.

"People all over the world will be participating," I said to add more clout to my receiving a certificate.

She smiled that teenage-smile that said, All that for a certificate? That sucks.

Maybe she was right. After all, last year I promised myself I'd never NaNoWriMo again. I also promised myself last November that I'd drop 20 pounds by Christmas-- that didn't happen either.

I have to admit there's a satisfaction that comes from writing all those words in a month and the realization that it can be done. It doesn't have to take a year to write the first draft of a novel. Everyday, starting November 1st, I'd post my word count at www.nanowrimo.org and watch my marker inch toward the 50,000 word line. I was glad I'd prepared, albeit rough, an outline. However, as fiction writers know, characters don't always cooperate with outlines. This can be problematic when you only have 30 days.

In the beginning of the month, I'd go where my characters led me. As the month progressed, I paid less and less attention to them, sticking more to my outline, and by the time I arrived at the last week, I was yelling at them to shut up.

There is an impressive side to participating in National Novel Writing Month-- people who aren't writers are impressed.

"Fifty-thousand words? In a month? Wow!" they'd say.

I'd smile and nod.

"I could never do that."

Probably not, I'd think, feeling smug until I'd have to return to my laptop and pound out another thousand words. It wasn't long before my smugness was replaced by me questioning my sanity. Before long, I was inside the fictional world which so many writers have written about. In that world,my protagonist hid from camera flashes and stares that condemned. She argued and made up with a boyfriend who didn't get it. When I think about that fictional world and others I've written about, I then remember why I signed up for National Novel Writing Month-- I enjoy a challenge, and I love to write.

So, on November 1st, I'll be getting my NaNoWriMo on.