Status Report: November 26, 2004

Today, totally buzzed on caffeine, I crossed that NaNoWriMo finish line. In one month I manage to cobble together 50,107 words. Unfortunately, what I have here is not a novel and it wasn't all written from scratch this month. Therefore, I will not be submitting it for validation or claiming my place in the winners' circle.

What I do have is notes and an outline for a maybe-someday novel and a sense of satisfaction for sticking with it for the month. I was very discouraged around 38,000 words, but slogged through. And by the last 8000 words I started getting all sorts of new ideas for things to write about.

I discovered I prefer writing for a specified amount of time each day rather than to crank out a quota of words. And now that I have a basic idea of what I want to say, I'm doing more brainstorming and free-associating, rather than feeling a need to tell a story. I guess that means I'm starting my first draft finally.

The really strange thing about this phase is that I can write while listening to music. Usually I can't. I'm easily distracted by other people's words when I'm writing. And even with music without words, my mind tends to wander with the melody.

Original Post: November 1, 2004

Why haven't you written your novel yet?

• You'll get to it someday.
• You don't have time now.
• You're waiting for inspiration.

Time to put away the excuses. November is NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month.

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over talent and craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

The theory: crank out 175 pages of something, and doing so will help you overcome the resistance to putting words on the page. So sign up today.

Okay. So we're in again this year. For real this time. Although fiction has never been my thing, I've decided to give myself the gift of a month of writing-just-for-the-fun-of-it writing. I have no excuses left so no more dabbling. Time to take the plunge.

Blogging, of course, is evidence of procrastination.