NaNoWriMo — I Won!!!!
It Took 30 Days — 52,746 Words
I won!!! At 52,746 words. I only had to get to 50,000 words, but this book, My Psychic Self, a teaching memoir, will likely stretch to about 60,000 words. I plan to keep writing on it until I get up around that number and then begin the editing, re-writing, polishing, and proofing process.
Periodically throughout the month of November, I have been posting updates on the progress I made through the annual NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) competitive writing event held every November. I have officially participated in seven of them through the years, though with this one, I have completed four. There was only one of them where I didn’t get one word written.
The November event has a goal of 50,000 words. There are other NaNo’s where fewer words are required, like 30,000 during the April and July camps. Although, I am pretty sure you can increase those goals to whatever you want. I even think you can create your own project no matter what month it is. Those just don’t get recorded as an official event.
After that, I will be publishing. Of the five books I’ve written, none of them are finished. Most were begun during NaNoWriMo events. However, as time has passed and as I’ve practiced my craft of writing every day, I am undoubtedly in a different headspace than I was five years ago. So, for the new year of 2024, I’ll be interested to see what happens.
Your first NaNo is always the hardest. It’s an exercise in pushing yourself to make a plan and then institute it. It is now allowed to work on the outline of your book prior to the event starting. I’m used to old school where I sit down on Nov 1 to begin. I have it in my head where I want to go. With memoirs and how-to books, that is relatively easy. With a fictional piece of work? That’s going to be more difficult for me. That was one of the NaNoWriMo’s I never finished.
In order to write 50,000 words during the course of a 30-day month like November, you need to divide 50,000 by 30. It’s just a guide. So, doing that you will need to write 1,667 words every day. I was not able to do that for half of the days. So, some days were fewer words other days more. That’s life, and stuff happens. Especially if you’ve got a job to go to in addition to your writing or family members who need attention.
I had to get accustomed to new habits: less time watching Netflix, Amazon Prime, and YouTube and more time writing. I had to remember to stand up and stretch and wave my hands to get the circulation going again. Also, there was numb-butt which needed to be addressed occasionally. Before I retired and had obligations at work, I used to wake up and go to bed earlier. Two quiet hours of writing in the morning before anybody woke up did the trick for me.
Now, in my retirement, I have found a lovely rhythm. I still get up early, though it is not the same every day, but the first thing I do is spend time working on whatever book is being written. Then, I will move to CNN, email, and writing articles on Medium.
This year, I spent a lot of effort in October stockpiling Medium articles that I scheduled to publish during November. I wanted to keep my oar in the water as I’ve noticed when I slack off writing Medium articles my readership plummets. As with any new habit, doing that started being hard, and then, as time progressed, it got easier. In fact, I’m thinking I will continue to do that. I will allow for spontaneous articles, or timely ones to be a part of my Medium writing, but in the coming year, I want to spend more time on my books. I’d like to see some of them published, in part because having a bit of income (hopefully) coming in would take the heat off of being retired and, secondly, to begin the process of spreading the love around. I want to get my author’s website off the ground.
Before I run out of time.
I have to tell you that writing here at Medium was the most propelling move I could make when I began writing on the platform two years ago. I’ve got 462 articles under my belt, and although I have never earned a lot of money writing them, the proof is that without the support, kindness, and encouragement I received from all of you at Medium, I doubt I could ever have gotten this far.
There is nothing to prevent you from creating your own competition, whether the goal is to write a book as quickly as you can or to write an article every day here at Medium. Even if what you want to do has nothing to do with writing, instead is to draw something every day, or to start braiding a rug to put in front of the kitchen door.
It’s getting to be that time of year to think about some resolutions for the coming year.
The Links NaNoWriMo — National Novel Writing Month — Always Free
