NaNoWriMo

Frank Sinatra Butterfly Stitched My Arm At My Wedding

And other delightful stories you’ll hear

The clock has started

Rickety roller coaster tracks are falling apart. You’re the passenger traveling ever higher in an ambulance traveling on one; you notice more cross ties are broken and then missing. Your driver is oblivious as they race higher and higher on this ever-winding roller coaster on a ship you’ve just noticed shrinking below you.

You begging for the driver to stop is of no use, and in a matter of milliseconds, you’ve burst free, disconnected from the last failed track, and now you’re suspended in air, thousands of feet over the ocean, and you know you’ll crash to your death in moments.

What’s going to happen next? Will you somehow be miraculously saved? What are your thoughts during these unimaginable circumstances? The reader wants to know. We’re suspended in midair right beside you.

Is this one of the exciting scenes that your fingers eagerly type, scribble, or voice onto a page during NaNoWriMo? Or are you hidden in the cool, dirt-floor basement of an abandoned farmhouse you came upon while escaping, having somehow been the lone survivor of a vicious killer?

You’re wearing torn clothes; your heavy breathing inhales the scent of blood from your knee, mustiness, and sweat. You know he may be close, your mouth is dry, your throat sore from running and screaming, you need desperately to take in oxygen, and your heart still races in terror, but you don’t want to make a sound.

Words of wisdom

This November will be the tenth year I may enjoy the excitement of NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month. For the entire month of November, I should be hard at work trying to get those precious 50,000 words onto paper by the end of the month to get my creative juices flowing. With local chapters worldwide, I am tardy in searching for one near me in my new surroundings.

I remember years past, back in Iowa, where my mom, middle daughter, and I would attend write-ins as much as possible during November. Our local NaNoWriMo leader would always say, “yay crap,” after each timed word sprint, where she’d go around the room and jot down how many words we’d written. It was the camaraderie, being together with other creatives, the process.

Where everybody knows your name

We met at coffee shops, libraries, pizza places, familiar chain restaurants, and wherever we could. We always had a big potluck write-all-night kickoff. And an end-of-month congratulatory get-together complete with prizes. We earned stickers for showing up to various write-ins, for reaching various goals: 5,000 words, 10,000, if our computer crashed and we lost all our work; there was a sticker for everything and a different theme each year.

One year, it was slick outside, and a thin layer of ice floated on the sidewalk outside the local pizzeria where we met that night. We were barely getting set up, and our leader fell in front of the entrance. I was at the counter ordering pizza and didn’t see what happened, but before I realized it, my mom and daughter had raced outside, and my daughter had helped her up and inside. I felt content to know they’d do that so quickly, without thinking twice. It’s funny, the things you’re reminded of, the tiny moments.

So many ideas in one room

Fellow writers who attended the meetings will always remain in a special place in my memory every November. Some would almost get the 50K written at every write-in. There were those who would bring pen and paper without fail because they were still old school, writers who’d already published, and those who said they never would.

There were poets whose flowery verse floated through their vernacular, entire families who attended and writers who said every year this was the only time they ever got out of the house. And writers who stayed home but zoomed in for every meeting without fail.

I’ll miss attending write-ins with people I always looked forward to catching up with this year. I’ll miss having an excuse to spend time with my mom and daughter doing something fun and creative together now that I live far away. Perhaps I’ll make new memories this year during NaNoWriMo. If there’s ever a perfect time to write your novel, it’s now.

Have you participated in NaNoWriMo? I’d love to hear about your experience.