NaNoWriMo - Mission Accomplished

On November 1st I set a goal to do NaNoWriMo, NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth – which was to work on a novel by writing 50,000 words by November 30th. Well, it’s November 30th, and I did it – I wrote 54,070 words, and it feels great!

   Not that it's been easy. I stated off the month really strong with 10,000 words by the end of Day 3 – and for the next few days kept going strong. But after the first week I started to get busy, I started working again, I found a million other things pulling away my attention – and as the month progressed I got farther and farther behind.

   Then, as I headed into this 4-day weekend for Thanksgiving, I reassessed the situation. When I got to work last Wednesday I checked my Word Count and was at 34,221. Not bad, but 15,000 words in 4 days, although tough, did seem do-able. As I left work on Wednesday for the holiday, I decided that I would just chain myself to my laptop all weekend and try to catch up.

   I had a bit of a drive to and from Family for Thanksgiving, so I used that time to ruminate on my story – develop a few parts of it a bit better, because it’s always easier to sit down to write when you have a few ideas ready to go. I jotted down a few notes, but really didn’t get much writing in on Wednesday or Thursday, because I wanted to spend the time with Family.

   So Friday I headed to Village Inn for “Breakfast” – or at least that was my excuse. I decided that if I stayed home, despite living alone, that I would get distracted by a sink of dirty dishes, laundry, and a million other things. No, I needed to go somewhere – somewhere I couldn’t really do anything but write. Besides, I was out of groceries and a nice omelet seemed the perfect motivation to start a day of writing. 4 hours later, with a nearly-dead laptop battery I had cranked out another 6,000 words. That put me over 40,000 words, and with 2 days to go I knew I could achieve this goal. I ran a few much-needed errands, recharged my batteries – both personally and my laptop, then Friday evening another few hours got me another few thousand words.

   Reinvigorated but tired, I slept-in on Saturday, and then again headed out to write – this time down to Malawi’s in Riverwoods for Small Business Saturday and lunch. Besides, bottomless fountain drinks always help. Another 4 hours, another dead battery, and goal achieved. [And, yes, I am pretty proud of myself!]

   I think that's how goals typically work: start strong, things get rough or boring and I start to lose steam. But with a deadline approaching and seeing that completion is within reach - well, it gives me that extra 'umph' to try. Which sometimes, just sometimes, leads to triumph.

   After 7 years at Franklin Covey, I did learn quite a few things that I continue to use even 15 years later. I do believe in setting SMART goals – and I don't just mean intelligent, but S.M.A.R.T.

• S – Specific – State EXACTLY what you want to achieve (Who, What, Where, Why)
• M – Measurable – How will you know you’ve achieved it?
• A – Achievable – Is it something you can realistically accomplish with the time and resources available?
• R – Relevant – Is it really important to you?
• T – Time-sensitive – Give yourself enough time, but always set a deadline.

   It doesn't always work, but lately I've done pretty good on my goals. I set an 83-day goal, and although I didn’t originally intend to blog every day, I did – and it felt great. As I’ve been job hunting the past few months, I set a goal to send out 100 resumes each week – and before I got this Temporary Contract, I was sticking to it; and even with working, I still spend a few hours every week sending out resumes. And now success on my goal with NaNoWriMo. My novel may not be done, but I'm 54,070 words closer to completion.

   So set your goals - because life is what you make of it. There are many areas of my life that aren’t going quite according to plan – but many of those are well-outside my circle of influence. But for those areas that I can influence and direct, I am really trying to. It does no good to just sit around and complain about life, because complaining about it doesn’t change it. So I choose to take action and make the changes that I want. It doesn’t always work, but when it does my life is better – and that’s really what life is all about anyway: Living the best life that you can, and moving a little forward today from where you were yesterday.

DAY 64 - WRITERS ARE WEIRD

OK, now that I’m doing this Writing Challenge (NaNoWriMo) — I decided to reach out and connect with other writers. I went to a couple of events for Writers these past few days, and one of the things that is very apparent:  Writers are Weird.

   I guess that shouldn’t have really come as a surprise to me. My family is full of writers — and, yes, they are a bit “quirky”. They have unusual hobbies. They tend to have somewhat “tangent” ideas — and they are fiercely dedicated to their tangentness. But some of the writers I met these past few days are truly “weird”.

   One of the meetings was at The Chocolate — a yummilicious dessert store in Orem. First, kudos for location choice. And although a few of the people seemed fairly normal, there were a few that were… well, weird. One woman was particularly chatty — not that being social is a problem for me (since I’m rather social myself). But this woman could talk me under the table. And her chattiness was even more surprising because not only was she in charge, but all of us brought laptops and notebooks and wanted to write — something usually more easily accomplished in a more hushed, library-like atmosphere.

   The other meeting was at a place called Dragons Keep in Provo — apparently a Fantasy Gaming and Comic Book store. I’ve never set foot in this store before, and unless I find the need for 27-sided dice or really-expensive and scantily-clad Action Figures sometime in the future — well, I’m not likely to frequent it very often. There was a rather large turnout, pizza & pop, and LOTS of people who apparently do this NaNoWriMo thing every November. And an amazing number of these individuals write Science or Fantasy Fiction. There were a significant number of conversations about Lord of the Rings and The Hobbit — movies I haven’t even seen, which confession immediately put me well-outside of the Inner Circle in this group.

   Fortunately, I have a great friend that enjoys writing also — and we decided to just be our own little group. We like to hang out anyway. We both actually want to write, so a quiet place to do so is a priority. And we are both pretty normal women.

   Having a Writing Buddy is a great thing. Much like a Diet Buddy or an AA Sponsor, having someone that supports you and gives you encouragement is a great thing in life. It’s much of the reason we all get married. But sometimes you have a specific hobby that you need a buddy/mentor for — and that’s a great thing too. I have Buddies for different areas of my life because no one person likes all the same things that I do. And it’s nice to have different friends I can share different parts of my life with.

   So if you think I’m a bit weird, thank you. Maybe that means I will make a good writer someday.

DAY 62 - NaNoWriMo – no, that’s not a misspelling

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.