November is NaNoWriMo!

I literally have 4 draft posts that I am working on for this blog and another 6 draft posts waiting to be finished for my Hynek's Handmade blog; but I just don't have time to work on any of them right now.  It's amazing really that once November 1st hits, I am consumed, busy, distracted, and definitely not in a place to create interesting or remotely useful blog articles.  It has nothing to do with Halloween finally being over, or that November 1st is my wedding anniversary, or that the holiday season is nigh.  It has everything to do with November being National Novel Writing Month (aka NaNoWriMo)! 

Every year from 12AM November 1st to 11:59PM November 30th aspiring writers world-wide are glued to their word processors in a frenzied attempt to write a 50,000 word novel.  That may not sound like much of a challenge to those who have not tried it before but then those are the folks who have not tried it before.  Take my word for it, its a challenge - but a doable challenge.  To hit the challenge mark, you have average 1,667 words of original content a day.  Nothing you may have written prior, outside of November, is allowed. 

Ever since I was a little girl, I have had these wonderful story ideas running around my head but I had never thought about getting any of them down on paper until my friend Marie introduced me to NaNoWriMo in 2007.  I remember my first NaNoWriMo well. I was so excited going in to it.  I outlined my story idea ahead of time (this is OK under the rules) so that I would just be able to write and not worry about where the plot is supposed to go.  It was all very OCD engineer of me and I chuckle to myself when I think about it now.  Once I started, I found that my story kept wandering from the outline, giving me fits about how to force it on the track I thought it should be rather than just letting it evolve.  This resulted in a terrible case of writer's block and I was perpetually behind in my daily word count and very frustrated. Then my computer died so horribly that I had to send it back to HP for repairs. I took it as a sign from God that I was not meant to finish that year.

The following year I gave it another try out of pure stubbornness.  I told myself that if things did not work for me a second year in a row that I would just scrap the whole concept and not torture myself further.  However, this second year I changed my approach to writing.  I started with an outline but I made it far more general and set in sand rather than stone.  I let the story take over.  I let the characters come alive in my head.  Once I did this, the story just sort of wrote itself.  It was amazing.  I met the NaNoWriMo 50,000 word goal a couple of days early that year with my story only half finished.  It was an amazing non-linear creative experience and suddenly I was hooked not just to NaNoWriMo but to writing in general. 

So every year, I participate in NaNoWriMo and almost everything else extra curricular in my life gets put on hold for the month of November.  I am still mothering my children and crafting for my Etsy shop (finishing up a custom order for my Aunt right now).  But the laundry piles up a bit more,  the house work gets ignored more, and family meals get decidedly boring and repetitive.  My hubby is awesome about it all and picks up the slack admirably and only asks for extra Star Buck's coffee beans.  I am so lucky! 

Happy NaNoWriMo!  See you all December 1st......