Finish It Friday ~ JANOWRIMO

 

The phenomenon known as NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, takes place every November. The gist of it is to write 1,600-odd words each day for the whole month and come out a the end with a 50,000-word draft novel. There are all kinds of ways to connect to other people who are participating, such as posting your daily word count and joining group write-ins. I've tried, halfheartedly, to NaNoWriMo a couple of times in the past, but November is not a great month for me for daily writing, what with Thanksgiving, at least four days with no school, and it usually being the time of year that my attack of "spring" cleaning strikes. I also don't find motivation in the joining of groups or the declaring publicly that I'm working on something. Quite the opposite, in fact.

At the end of December, I was looking at a January calendar that was mostly clear and feeling the urge to work on something different than the projects I'd been doggedly grubbing away at all fall. I pulled up the file of a novel I'd started the last time I'd tried to NaNoWriMo, in 2018. I'd written 14,000 or so words before I couldn't bear to look at it any more. But now as I read through I realized there was something to it--a story I could work with. So I decided to create my own NaNoWriMo but in January--JanNoWriMo--and finish writing that book. There would be no joining, no declaring my intentions, no public posting of my daily word count; there would just be me pecking quietly away writing every day. 

Since I already had some words (about 8,000 that made it over from the original effort)--and because I did the math wrong--I only required myself to write 1,200 words in order to get a sticker for the day. Most days I wrote more, some days a *lot* more, and some days I quit at exactly 1,202 because I couldn't think of another single solitary word to write. I also wasn't quite done on January 31st and had to write a couple thousand words on February 1st to finish the book, In the end, I came out with a draft of around 61,500 words.

Another principle of NaNoWriMo is to write forward--no going back and tinkering--and I followed this mostly, until I got to a place about 3/4 of the way through when I got stuck. I had no idea where to go from there. So I went back to the beginning and started reading, and for the next three days got my word count in by backfilling all of the preceding scenes. This gave me both an overview of the book and enough of a rest that my brain had time to come up with the next scene. 

When I typed the last word Wednesday I experienced a feeling of euphoria that was quickly followed by a sense of letdown. I was going to miss these characters who kept me company when I lay awake at night with insomnia, imagining them acting out the scenes to come. I also knew that the really hard work--letting it rest, deciding if there's anything there worth keeping, and then revising--lies ahead. The letdown didn't last too long, though, because, after all, I wrote a whole novel, right to the end, something I've wanted to do for more than 40 years.

Finish it Friday ~ NA-SO-WRIMO

Last month I set out to conduct my own version of NANOWRIMO (National Novel Writing Month), which I called National Something Writing Month. My goal: to type up at least 1667 words every day from old journals to generate material for a few essay and memoir projects I'm working on.

I get a sticker on the calender when I reach my writing goal for the day—
sadly I ran out of autumnal stickers, but I got a lot of high fives!

And I came oh so very close—I wrote the minimum on all but three days of the month (including Thanksgiving!!). Two of those days I had all-day meetings followed by evening activities and the other one we had out-of-town guests staying with us. I totaled 46,767 words (the goal of NANO is 50,000) and I got through eight journals (only about 17 left to go!). True, they were mostly not new words (except for some editing/enhancing that took place as I typed), but they were words that needed to get out of my handwriting and into the computer, so I call that a win.

It's also the most consistent I've been about working on a writing project in a very long time, probably since writing The Book, although I didn't track either my time or my words then, so I know neither how how quickly or how often I worked (I do recall some days when I went hiking or got caught in the downward email spiral, and I think I mostly didn't work on weekends).

I discovered that I can type already-written words while a lot of other activity is going on around me—people talking, the TV on, etc, which was truly what made getting so many words possible (new words, that require a fair amount of quiet contemplation, would be much more difficult). I may employ this as a strategy in the future—doing my thinking and writing on paper and typing up later while watching Friends or Supergirl with the kids. My plan is to keep going through December with daily writing/typing, but with a lower word count goal of 1000, now that I'm back to work all day. Wish me luck!

Start It Friday ~ NA-SO-WRIMO

Today's November 1st, and therefore Day 1 of NANOWRIMO—National Novel Writing Month, a worldwide creative endeavor and event, where the idea is to challenge yourself to write a 50,000 word novel in one month (around 1667 words per day). I kinda half-a**ed NANO last year, starting a novel but not getting very far for various reasons, such as I didn't have a clear idea where I was going, I didn't like my idea that much once I started working on it, and I started a new job on November 5th. I still would love to write a novel during NANOWRIMO, but I still do not have an idea I love enough to develop (or not one I've done enough background work to get going on anyway), and I have several nonfiction projects looming over me like disembodied spirits walking the earth on the Day of the Dead.



SO. I'm not NANOWRIMOing, but I am NASOWRIMOing (that's Nation Something Writing Month), and working on two of those nonfiction projects, which are both essay collections and both require mining material from old journals, so it makes sense to work on the initial gathering phase concurrently since background for both is intermingled in said journals. I've been working on both intermittently over the last couple of months, but now it's time to buckle down, bite the bullet, and do all the cliches that mean get serious, and write 1667 words per day, come hell or Thanksgiving.

I had the decks cleared today for some serious focused work time, and then there was a wind/rain storm last night that resulted in E and Z having a delayed start at school. And of course our internet was out (and of course I work on the cloud). And C only had a small job to do and would be back in the early afternoon. Still I managed to rearrange my day, spent some time in the morning planning how I'd approach the projects this, took my morning walk after lunch, when the wind had blown the clouds away and after C came inside, and finally got my 1670 words typed up and my sticker on the calendar just in time to shower and pick Z up from cross country.

I don't know how it's going to work going forward, but I'm off to a good start!

Are you NASOWRIMOing this month?