NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It
happens every November, and the challenge is to write 50,000 words in the next
30-days. I decided to participate this year, and since today is November 1st –
I am jumping in.
I’ve wanted to do this for the past few years, but there was
always some excuse. I was too busy. It was too much to take on. Life just
seemed too much “up in the air”. Not that my life is really any calmer this year
than any other year, but that the challenge of “1667 words per day” doesn’t
seem as daunting as it used to. Most of my blogposts are 500+ words (some even
800 words), and I’ve been able to handle that for the past 62 days.
And blogging for the past 62-days has really done a lot for
me. It forces me to get out and do something every day that is Blogworthy –
which is especially helpful on those days that I just want to pull the covers
up over my head and make the world go away (and, yes, I still have more days
like that than I should). Writing every day also makes me stick with it – I mean, once I got
through the first 21-days, then the first 30-days… well, to write for all
83-days seems totally do-able. And it has helped me prove to myself that I can
write – the quality of my writing is still to be determined, but as one who has
always dreamed of being a writer, this blog at least has me writing. And with
now over 12,000 hits on this blog so far (see 10,000 Hits), for the first time
in my life I am finally brave enough to share what I’m writing – and,
gratefully, getting wonderful and positive comments.
In my Den I have a 6-foot-long bookshelf, and one entire
shelf contains all of my journals from throughout my life. I’ve been an avid
journaler most of my life, and those Journals now not only fill an entire 6-foot
expanse but they have started to overflow onto the shelf below also. I rarely
leave the house without a Journal in my purse, or some form of pen and paper.
[And I always keep pen and paper in my car.] Even sometimes just standing in a
line at the bank or somewhere, I will use the email function on my phone to jot
down mini-entries – sometimes not more than a simple note about somewhere or
someone. But it’s better to have only a single paragraph on a topic than
nothing at all.
My father always wanted to write the Great American Novel,
and handed his novel off to me to complete. I have pages and pages of notes
that he wrote, and— if I can decipher the hieroglyphics he called handwriting —
someday I may work on it. Even a few of my cousins have written
novels. Four-generations of my family has been into writing in some form or
another. Roes are writers (and readers) – I guess it’s just in our blood.
So for the next month I will write an average of 1667 words
each day – which will give me 50,000 words by the end of November. According to
websites, that’s about 2-hours or so of writing each day. No editing. No
proofreading. Just writing and writing and writing — and letting the ideas flow
onto the page.
It may never become the Great American Novel, but for me
that isn’t the point. I write because I love to write. I does something for me
that I can’t get from anything else. It feeds a part of my soul.
And if, by chance, it does turn into the Great American
Novel – I’m sure I’ll blog about that too.
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