NaNoWriMo

This November, I'm excited to announce that I'm participating in National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo. For those who may be unfamiliar with this event (and perhaps would like to join) the official website is https://nanowrimo.org/.

NaNoWriMo is an event which brings writers together as they work towards finishing a novel-length book. Each participant's objective is to put 50,000 words towards their project in the month of November. Although the novel is certainly far from complete by the end of the month (it's only a first draft that will need further edits) the rewards that come with building a habit of regular writing and having a finished (or nearly finished) draft by the end of the month are well worth the effort.

So far, I've enjoyed the process. I have over 13,000 words of my book written, and though I was initially nervous to start writing a project that wasn't 100% mapped out, I've gained confidence as I've gotten further into the story. Many writers will use the month of October to prepare, research, and organize ideas. I'll admit that this October was especially busy for me, so my preparation felt meagre, but it was enough to get started.

At this point, I won't be sharing many details about my upcoming project because much of it is subject to change. As this is likely to be the second book in a series (I chose to write it out of order) I will need to make a number of revisions to the manuscript when I've written the first book to reflect any further worldbuilding I accomplish in that project. Why am I writing out of order? It was actually a tricky decision to make, as I typically write the story in sequential order: chapter one, chapter two, and so forth. When I write a series, I like to write in order as well. But after mapping out the events of each book in this potential series, I felt especially drawn to this particular storyline and characters. I knew I had to write them first, because I felt like I knew them the best.

Although it's only been a week, I've seen firsthand how amazing it is to share progress with other writers and challenge one another to reach our word counts. I've found the Discord platform to be very helpful for this. I've also discovered that it is truly freeing to insert placeholders in the manuscript instead of derailing for a research project. I always get stuck on naming people, animals, places, etc., and for some reason it has rarely occurred to me until this year that "hey, this is just a first draft!" It's okay to let it be imperfect - for now - and keep writing while the flow of ideas is still going strong.

So even if you're not into writing and NaNoWriMo isn't for you, I'd like to encourage you to seize a goal and accomplish a bite-sized piece every day. Because, believe me, it's an amazing feeling of accomplishment.