When I heard of NaNoWriMo it was in Jan 2012. I was just starting to think about writing a novel then. I was bummed I had just missed something that seemed so cool. I thought it would have been fun to just jump in and see how I did. Writing from the hip, so to speak. I am very happy that didn’t happen however. NaNo looked like a fun thing to do back then. Something like a easy 5k run that people do dressed up like superheroes. Something that was just kinda fluffy. I can honestly say I was wrong. I have been doing more and more research into NaNo and the people involved in it. I have learned instead of a fluffy 5k stroll... its the freaking NY Marathon. You practice, you prepare, and you get yourself into writing shape.
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| NaNoWriMo is NOT this! |
Over the past 8 months or so... I have worked on writing short stories. World building. Listening to writing podcasts and reading writing blogs. The more I prepped... the more I felt like I couldn’t do it. Its like starting to train for a marathon only to realized you’re a 80 year old cripple with heart trouble!
I kept going though... mostly out of habit at this point. Researching and plotting, researching and plotting. Then I started to spend some time on the NaNo Forums and I found hundreds of people that felt the same way as me! Yet... they were still trying. Some said they had tried for years and years and had never got past the 5,000 word mark. They all felt like 80 year old’s trying to run the NY Marathon. It was the breath of fresh air that I needed. Although I am going to TRY for the highly unrealistic(for me) goal of 50k words... I’m going to be very happy if I break 10k. If I break 20 I’m going to throw a party... If I by some miracle finish this crazy thing... I’m going to lose my mind, and then throw a party!
It seems to me, that NaNo is what you make of it. There is no guy with a whip forcing you to finish. There is no slave drummer telling you how fast to type. Its just that one thing that every writer (or wannabe writer) needs... Motivation! NaNo has forced me to get my story into a outlined form. It has forced me to do research that I never thought I would. Its made me create a blog, a writing group and a fictional universes to play in. Those are all because of something that hasn’t even happened yet.
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| NaNo is not this either! (Although this may be a form of motivation as well.) |
No matter what happens... NaNo is getting me writing and thinking about writing. That is a win in my book! (See what I did there?)
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