Well, it actually started yesterday. For those of you who don’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. You spend the month of November writing 50,000 words of your novel and then spend December writing more, editing, or just crying because you just churned out 50,000 words.
I “participated” last year, like I’ll participate this year. Last November, I was finishing up grad school, so it was a lot of writing between papers and my novel. I wrote ~25,000 words of the novel I was working on, which I finished in January. It was one I had been working on since the end of my senior year of college, and I was honestly glad I actually finished a story I had started.
The one I’m working on now I started in April. The entire story is planned out in an outline, but I’ve been having trouble being consistent in writing it. I’m in the middle of chapters seven and eight—and the very beginning of chapter nine—but was stuck for a little while. I want to spend NaNoWriMo working on it.
I’ve made a goal of writing each day, no matter how many words I write. I’m going to use the word tracker on NaNoWriMo’s website to keep better track of my words than just my estimating last year.
I have to let myself just write and not worry about it being a little rough so far. That’s why it’s called a rough draft, right? I need to get the ideas out on paper—or technically on the screen—and keep at it. Because fiction writing is something that I do enjoy, and I think this novel could be fun to write.
Have you ever tackled writing a novel? Or fiction writing? Any advice to make writing daily a habit? I’m also accepting check-ins and words of encouragement.
Strikeouts + Sprinkles 
I’ve wanted to do this over the last few years but never have. I’ve attempted a novel twice before. And each time I get to a point where I find some major flaw and delete it. And both times I’ve regretted deleting it haha. I need to get past the “I’m stuck and over this I need it to be gone” thing.
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I used to write in high school, and I’d never finish any of the stories because I’d get new ideas and just move onto those. But it can be daunting to tackle, and it’s hard to get over that bump of “do I delete this or do I think of something else?” If I get stuck, I normally move onto another chapter and see if I can get unstuck or come up with another idea/direction for the story to go.
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I usually get bored with it and just let it die lol the one I most recently deleted, it was me working through some rough emotions over someone and when I got to a place of peace with them I was like “well I don’t need to keep rehashing this” and deleted the whole thing. Even though it was almost 30.000 words lol
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I think you’re the first person in the last 4 years to actually spell out what NaNoWriMo stands for. I had no clue other than it included people writing a lot. Also, if “WRITE MORE” counts as words of encouragement, you can count on me.
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I felt the need to explain it just in case no one knew what it meant haha. I think people use NaNoWriMo because National Novel Writing Month is a mouthful to say. I appreciate the words of encouragement. I’m going on day four of writing every day, so only 26 more days to go.
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There have been several Novembers that have come and gone when I’ve planned to actually write one of the many novels I have floating around in my head, but I’ve just never done it. I don’t prioritize it and life just gets in the way. I thought about it yesterday when I realized it was November 1, and I actually started writing something. I really don’t think it’ll get anywhere, but I’m gonna give it a shot. And I don’t mean it won’t get anywhere because I don’t think I’ll follow through (which, if the past has taught me anything, it’s a real possibility), but because the story is a new take on characters that don’t belong to me. It’s basically fan fiction. And while novels have been written about the same characters, they’ve been published recent enough that it would just look like I’m plagiarizing what’s already come before. Even though I know I had my idea years ago and just never did anything with it. And it’s actually really different… I’m not sure if this comment was to talk myself into or out of participating this month. I do love writing fiction and, now that I’m back to blogging on a regular schedule, I want to try to post some kind of short fiction every Friday. The real trick will be to see if I can stick with that, too… Do I have a problem with not following through on things? Did this just become a counseling session? How does that make you feel?
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When I used to write fiction in high school, I’d never finish the stories. I probably have like eight stories that I started and sort of outlined but never finished because I’d come up with another idea and work on that instead. Writing a novel (or most of a novel) in a month seems daunting, so that’s why I only got ~25,000 words last year. So that’s why this year, I am still keeping track of my word count but also just trying to write every day.
I think you should try your hand at NaNoWriMo this month! Even if you’re unsure of your characters. Just try to write a little bit every day. Even if it doesn’t go anywhere, you can still work on your writing and trying to be a better writer. I’m trying not to worry about getting everything perfect on the first try and just getting words out on the screen to move the story along.
The spur of the moment counseling session is fine, and I’m totally cool with it. Sometimes you just need to ramble and get everything out there to see if it actually makes sense, because sometimes your mind can play tricks on you. So moral of the story: just write this month!
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I always let myself off the hook by writing flash fiction for the blog, whenever I actually sit down to write fiction. Part of my problem is that I so rarely think to sit down and make up any kind of outline for where I want my story or characters to go. So I’ll start something that looks somewhat strong… then it just fizzles out because I have no real plan. I have the idea of a plan… but that doesn’t cut it. But I’m writing this month. It’s something I’ve always said I wanted to do: write a novel. Ever since I was in 5th grade. The only thing stopping me is me.
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Wow! Congratulations Becky! Thanks for spelling that out b/c like Paul, I too had no clue. Good luck!
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Haha thanks. Yeah, if you don’t know what it means, you’re probably pretty confused. But I can also see why they use the shorter version because National Novel Writing Month is a lot to say.
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[…] was my second year participating in National Novel Writing Month, because I like to cause myself pain and stress and more […]
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