So it’s November, usually one the three months I am so busy I couldn’t possibly entertain the idea of joining something like a writing competition and yet here I am for the first year ever joining in the festivities.
NaNoWriMo, for those out of the know, stands for National Novel Writing Month which is in November. It’s when a whole bunch of us writers get together and try to just vomit up as much writing as we can. Traditionally this has meant writing in a singular writing project, a novel, as many words as possible a day with the hopes of reaching at least 50,000 words by the end of the month. It’s a quick and dirty competition mostly against one’s self. There is no editing, no thinking, just writing. And I love the spirit of that but for me trying to slog through just one novel in a month, day after day, would drive me insane and make me want to abandon it completely. I just don’t work like that so I set my own goals.
This month I pledged, to myself and my writer friends on FaceBook and Twitter, that I would write every day, hopefully at least 2,000 words if possible. It’s been three days and here is what I have accomplished so far:
Day One: I wrote out a short story about a woman spending a night on the town baiting a rapist. Why? Well you’ll just have to wait for me to publish it to find out. It’s a dark story… brought me to some uncomfortable places but I feel like the ending was beautiful and justified. It’s something I wrote in solidarity for the suffering of women and I am proud of it although I have no idea what I am going to do with it. I was completely happy with how it came out and I shall put it aside and edit it properly in a month or two when it is no longer fresh on my mind. It gave me a hard earned 2,897 words. By the end I was emotionally depleted and slept damn well that night.
Day Two: I found a stash of old notes – one which vaguely detailed a dream I must have had some months back. The basic concept of it was so endearing I thought it might make an adorable children’s book and so I wrote out 2,759 darling words about a small child who finds themself in possession of a genie – a genie who doesn’t speak a lick of English and who no one understands is a genie. Adorable chaos ensues. This story wrote itself. I had so little to do with it. I picked my characters name from a list of baby names and then everything fell into place like I’d plotted it out – only I didn’t – which is totally nuts seeing as the beginning and end tie together so harmoniously. And the kicker? The ending even made me want to cry and I wrote it! This whole experiment was a bizarre one. I’ve never written for children before – never had the desire – but now I have this sweet little manuscript how can I not spend the time to illustrate it and see what happens?
Day Three: Day three I am cheating a bit because I was busy. Basically I wrote 1,204 words in a journal only I’ll see, another 1088 words in this blog entry about my current struggle with chronic fatigue syndrome and “female issues”, and of course the 668 words I wrote in this entry bringing the grand total to: 2906. I’m not displeased but I still feel like it was cheating. I don’t know what I will write tomorrow but I look forward to it! I will check in periodically to tell of my progress…
So how close am I to the 50,000 word goal for the end of the month? Well let’s see – over three days I have completed in total 8,619 words. Not bad!