I’m just one day away from participating in my fourth NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo is an event held every November with the goal of helping writers to write 50,000 words of a novel by the end of the month.
My past three NanoWriMo efforts have gotten me started on what are now three completed books in a series. This year, I’m heading into the month having already written the first 30,000 words (about one third) of a new novel—the first time I’ll be starting with words on the page rather than just an outline. My hope is to finish NaNoWriMo with a completed draft of around 80,000 words. The photo below gives a little preview of what I’m working on this year: something with that hint of magic that I love.
Each time I participate in NaNoWriMo, I seem to start the month with lots of caveats: “Work/life/family has a lot going on this month, so I’m probably not going to finish.” But while I’ve never written 50,000 words during NaNoWriMo (I’ve come close!), and have experienced many a November day when I haven’t written one word, let alone the target 1,667 words, I still love participating. There’s just something about knowing that there are hundreds of thousands of other writers around the world, all trying to reach their personal writing goals during this one month of the year.
This year, work is particularly busy. I know that there will likely be days when I can’t reach 1,667 words. But—as in years past—I also know that I’ll have days when I write more than 1,667 words; days when I manage to write a few times a day, when the words flow, and when I’m deep into the world I’m building with each page and chapter. It’s very possible that I won’t reach 50,000 words again this year, but it’s still going to be fun trying.
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