November means National Novel Writing Month. 30 days of frenzied writing activity happening across the globe as hundreds of thousands of writers commit to putting 50k words on the page!
I love NaNoWriMo. I’ve been doing it for a decade and by now my writer-brain sees the changing colour of the leaves, and the feels the heating switch on in the house, and immediately starts devising plot lines and characters in anticipation of starting a new novel.
I remember the first year I discovered it. I thought people were mad for even attempting it. But, then I figured ‘why not?’. After all, what was the worst that could happen? I’d sit down to write and nothing would happen…? Well, that was already the case most days anyway. So, even if I wrote just a few hundred words a day, I’d be better off than if I’d never have tried.
That’s the genius of National Novel Writing Month: whether you make the ambitious target or not, you win.
I’ve written at least eight full length novels that all have their origins in dark, dank November days of fevered writing. Sometimes I had a plan, other times I flew by the seat of my pants. Occasionally I had to scrap the plan and find a new story half way through, because my characters weren’t behaving themselves!
I honestly believe every writer should try it at least once.
The confidence and energy that can come from committing to your writing for a single month – just 30 days – is electrifying. If you’ve spent the year trying to write that novel and failing, or can’t stop going back and editing the same sections again and again to get them perfect … Well, NaNoWriMo could be the cure for you.
The camaraderie that comes when you know – and can see through social media – other people are writing alongside you, and the encouragement and excitement that comes with this is the most motivated I’ve ever been! Writing suddenly becomes a lot less solitary. And for those 30 days anything becomes possible as you write your way to the most words you’ve written in months.
Granted, they’re not always the *best* words. By that isn’t the point of National Novel Writing Month. It’s about the writing. Creating sentences, and paragraphs, and chapters of a story that has been brewing inside of you for too long. I’m a big believer in this quote from Terry Pratchett who says that “the first draft is just you telling yourself the story”. And November is an excellent month for storytelling.
