If you're unfamiliar with National Novel Writing Month, you probably haven't known me for very long. Although this is my second year participating, I think this is one of the most wonderful - and scariest - experiences a serious writer can have.
The goal of National Novel Writing Month, often called NaNoWriMo, is to write a 50,000 word novel in the course of 30 days. The official month this takes place in is November but can be done in any month of the year with Camp NaNoWriMo. For most folks, this may seem like a hefty goal. Let me explain why it is not.
I'm sure that most of you reading this have experienced writing some sort of essay for school. Most of these essays, if done in college, can be many pages long. I remember specifically on one occasion, in an art class, I was required to write an 8-10 page paper on one piece of art. The paper turned out to be 8 pages, not including my reference page. While writing my novel this year, I figured out that 1000 words = about 3 pages. I was using MS Word 2007 at 11 point font in Calibri. The goal per day in NaNo is 1667. By my calculations, that should equal about 6.5-7 pages, depending on how you space your lines. Seven pages in one day, to me, seems like a very reasonable goal.
While it's not intended to be a perfect, wonderful bestseller, a NaNovel (as they are often called) can be a wonderful way of getting a story out that's been hanging around for a while. My first NaNovel was The Bell Ringer (formerly Heart of the Bells). It was complete and utter nonsense, poorly written, and had grammatical errors scattered everywhere. I was so proud of it. I still am and I do want to revise it and look into publication.
There is a lot of criticism toward NaNoWriMo. I believe this mostly comes from the uninformed. I don't think that a lot of "serious" or published authors truly understand the goal of trying to write a novel in a month.
The best way that I can defend NaNo is to say that it's not going to produce a magical work of art. In fact, it's quite the opposite most of the time. At the end of 30 days, you'll probably have 50,000 words of typos, nonsensical sentences, and basically, a lot of junk. But you'll have 50,000 words that you didn't have on October 31st.
It's 30 days of writing, sleep deprivation, slight malnourishment, and your family will probably forget who you are. It's also 30 days of killing your inner editor, learning to write past the junk and find the beauty of writing in itself, making new friends, consuming coffee by the gallon, and eating a heckuva lot of pancakes.
So why do it? Why limit yourself to 30 days to write a novel if you know it's probably not going to be very good anyway?
The answer is different for everyone. For some, it's just a way to explore their inner writer. For others, it's a way to sit down and write a serious novel that they intend on publishing, something they may have never written otherwise. Some of the NaNo writers publish as they write and post up e-books for others to read. Some folks talk for years about the novel they're going to write and never do it.
For me, however, it is kind of an outlet, a way of working out stories that have been in my head. It's a way of giving a character who's been bugging me for a while a voice. But the most important part of NaNo for me was that I finally found a way to really be myself when writing. By this, I mean that I had never before really been able to work my beliefs about God into a story that didn't seem forced and cliché. My NaNovel gave me that this year.
Pixie Dust gave me a whole new level of exploration into writing and I found that God is a part of everything I do and how can I possibly exclude him? God is the most important thing in my life and he IS my life. To be able to accomplish writing not just 50,000 words of a story (that I simply adore) but to finish at 63,000 words - 13,000 ahead of goal - was much too difficult for me to accomplish alone. I have an anxiety disorder and this, by medical standards, should not have been possible for me. I can only attribute this to fervent prayer and strength from God.
Many of the people who know me think I'm completely insane for participating but have been incredibly and unceasingly supportive. Without them, I don't know if I'd have found the drive I needed to go on. I have a lot of thanking to do and December is a great time. So thank you to my friends and family that lent me to my writing passions for a month and supported and encouraged me. Thank you to my fellow WriMos who cheered me on, lifted me up when I was down, and gave my cow a swift kick in the butt when it needed one. Much thanks to my followers and Facebook friends for putting up with the nearly incessant tweeting about word counts and fairies. And mostly, thanks to my God for the strength I needed to make that final push to 50,000 on November 15th.
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