NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) starts next Monday. Is anyone planning to write a novel this November?
I’ve never tried NaNoWritMo, but I’m planning to give it an unofficial shot this year. Winter in Wisconsin is a perfect time to write a novel. I don’t want to waste all the time I must spend indoors doing nothing. But these days it seems that I need some motivation, so I’m hoping that NaNoWriMo will provide that for me this year.
I don’t think I’ll actually sign up on the website. (https://nanowrimo.org/) I’m a time spent writing rather than word count oriented writer – and I find word count goals tend to be inhibiting rather than motivating for me. However, since I have most of the high points of a short 50-60K word novel in my current series in mind, I think that I could get at least a good start on a first draft done in a month. We’ll see.
So what about you guys? Has anyone ever participated in the program? What was your experience?
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Published by chucklitka
I was born in 1950 and spent the 1960’s reading hundreds of SF books while dreaming of becoming a SF author when I grew up. I enrolled as a journalism major in college, but dropped that after my freshman year when I realized I was too shy to be a journalist. I then decide I either had the talent to write or I didn’t. Time would tell. In the late 1970’s I finished and submitted a SF novella, a SF short story, and a fantasy novel. They brought me a small collection rejection slips. I continued to write for fun. In 2009, now with a computer with a built in spellchecker I got more serious and completed three novels the course of next six years, for the fun of writing. I had no intention of submitting them to traditional publishers. Been there, done that. If I felt they were good enough, I’d self-publish them, which I did in 2015, for free since I don’t need to be paid for having fun. As of 2021 I have published 10 SF/adventure novels, 2 novellas and one children’s short story.
I’m married. My wife and I have two children, and two grandchildren. I have lived most of my life in Wisconsin. I’ve worked at various jobs, including 13 year with a commercial printer and small town daily newspaper. I operated a cottage industry mail order tea business for a decade, and quit my day job at 53 to try my hand a making a living as an artist. Never made it big, never went bust. We’re retired these days and living a quiet life. The type of life I like.
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I’ve never signed up and done whatever one does on the site. But I did start writing The Friendship of Mortals on November 7th, 2000. I think Nanowrimo had been around only one year at the time and I didn’t know about it.
There’s nothing about joining Nanowrimo that appeals to me, but I agree that November is an excellent writing month. Gardening is winding up for the year (except for endless leaf-raking) and the period of darkness is lengthening. Writing is easier when it’s dark outside, whether early morning or nighttime.
Good luck with your November writing project!
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Thanks for your thoughts. I feel much the same way. As I said, I put in my 1 1/2 to 2 hours in the morning, and maybe an hour or two in the evening, when things are going well, but never worry about word counts. However, I need something to motivate me to write, it seems, and when I realized that it was NaNoWriMo, I latched on to that. Good luck with your project. Looking forward to it.
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It was NaNoWriMo that actually started me writing. In October of 2003, a friend who knew about my ambition to one day write a novel told me about NaNoWriMo. That day, I drove home and outlined a novel in my head. Or at least came up with the general idea for a novel. I started writing and while I didn’t come close to the NaNoWriMo word count goal, I managed about 20,000 words over the next few weeks.
Then, I got stalled for a couple of months. I had young kids and writing involved me removing myself from their lives and going into the office to write. I didn’t want to do that. I ended up buying a laptop and proceeded to write that novel over the next year while being with my kids. Taking breaks to dunk them in the pool or run around the neighborhood and then coming back to the laptop to write.
I’ve tried it a couple of times since then and have utterly failed. I simply don’t write the way you have to in order to be “successful” at the NaNo goal. I can’t just shut down my internal editor. I can’t stop editing as I write. I can’t write almost 2000 words a day for 30 days straight. It’s just not how I do these things.
Which is a long way of saying … I’m thinking of giving it a try. Like you, not officially, not by logging into the website. But doing it on my own. It’s time for me to give that way of writing another try. I’ve got a couple of stories I’m thinking of pursuing in the next few weeks and seeing what I can do.
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Thanks for sharing your experience. This is an act of mild desperation. After writing some shorter ebook-sized stories, I wanted to write a more ambitious novel. I spent all summer trying to come up with one, without success. So it’s back to another entry in my current mystery/adventure series. I hope. Six months of Wisconsin winter should not be wasted. Good luck on your writing projects.
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Good luck to you as well. I’m still not sold on NaNo as a way to address my writing issues.
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Well, I’m 6,000 words into the story, but I didn’t like the pressure of meeting deadlines. I’m retired. And I found that I needed to give more thought to the story. Guess I’m not a pantser. So I’m giving up on the NaNoWriMo concept. I’m just going to put in my usual 2+ hours a day and hopefully get a story out of it. I’ve got all winter.
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