It might seem that the whole point of NaNoWriMo is to create a novel in a month, or at least to write 50,000 words, and that is great to start. But after doing it for many years, what matters to me is focusing for a month on something writing related, while having fun, building community, as well as making progress on a project.
When I first heard about NaNoWriMo, it seemed like a cool idea–trying to write a novel in a month while others were doing the same. I think I heard about it from an informational posting at work. But, my father was still not quite right after surgery, we had three children and I worked in a technical field that required a fair amount of creativity. So while I loved to write, I didn’t feel that I had time right then.
I didn’t think about NaNoWriMo for a few years, and continued on my own writing and editing. It came to my attention in October of 2006 so I joined. At the time, the company where I worked was being acquired by a French company. There were a lot of unknowns including whether there would still be jobs in Illinois. Past acquisions had resulted in closing some locations. So, I decided to write about a woman who wasn’t sure if she’d keep her job or not. People often asked me, “Does she?” My answer was, “I hope so.”
Since I am by nature a planner, I was sorry that I hadn’t heard about NaNoWriMo a month sooner, but figured that I could take advantage of a family visit to have some alone time to write starting November 1st. I had done writing marathons a time or two, including a weekend on my own at the Indiana Dunes where I wrote a 10,000 word children’s chapter book. Normally, I wrote on Sunday mornings throughout the school year while my husband took the kids to/from religious school and grocery shopped and hung out at his office with the little one to give me time alone.
I remember telling my friends that I’d probably get up early on November 1st to start writing. “Why not just start tonight?” I explained that it wasn’t allowed to start early. “Who would know?” I would.
By spending November 1st on my own, I started the month with a good lead. I wrote every day, not stopping when I hit 50,000 since my novel wasn’t finished. It came in at 77,000.
I had joined the Naperville region, but I didn’t pay much attention to various announcements about word wars, or other stuff, since I was busy writing. I didn’t even bother updating my word count daily, only doing it three times. Once I finished, I noticed an announcement for the Thank Goodness It’s Over party, so I RSVPed yes.
I didn’t have a great novel, but I’d met my goal of finishing a novel and written at least 50,000 words. I enjoyed focusong on it, but resolved that next year I’d do preparation so I had an outline to follow instead of hoping that my company’s merger would provide fodder. They announced the official merger on December 1st, after NaNoWriMo finished. I found that funny, even though it was frustrating at the time since I could have used the material.
When I went to the TGIO party, people did a double-take when they saw my user handle. By only updating three times and writing more than 1667 words a day, I had many people wondering who I was. I had no idea that people compared their progress to other people’s to spur themselves on. Also, most people struggled to write 50,000 words over the month, whereas I’d gotten to 77,000 before Thanksgiving.
Since then, I’ve had years where I raced other writers to be the top word count, but that first year I was oblivious. And, honestly, I do believe the hype that we’re all winners, even those who don’t make 50,000 words, just by focusing on our writing for a month.
