November means many different things for people. It is one of the last months of the year. For my husband and my mom it means another birthday is on the horizon. In the United States, November represents a time of thankfulness, delicious gluttony and the arrival of the holiday season. For me for the past two years November represents more than all of these things. It is the one month of the year where I naively enter into a challenge that in most cases I have no hope of beating, but take on anyway. Possibly it is insanity, but I prefer to think of it as the eternal optimism of the child inside of me.
In November I join with hundreds of thousands of eager souls around the world to undertake a mission, to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. Yes, I am a NaNoWriMo. For those of you unfamiliar with this strange and exotic term, NaNoWriMo is an acronym for National Novel Writing Month.
I first signed up to be a WriMo in November of 2011. I had already completed first drafts on two novels and decided it might be fun to see if I could write a third in 30 days. Sick with bronchitis and feeling a little directionless now that my youngest was in first grade and going to school full time, I signed up. I decided I would write a novel that I had no outline for, only an idea of, and I would do it without even breaking it up into chapters. It would be written as just one long piece of free form writing.
It was fun, it was frustrating, and I completed it within a couple of days of the final November 30th deadline. This YA master piece has be rewritten now once and is going to be undergoing a third incarnation very soon, once I have time. I still have hopes for it eventually getting published when it is fully ready. But the fact that I wrote it in a month is something I am still very proud of, even if it never gets published.
Winning NaNoWriMo was an acheivement I have yet to duplicate. I have signed on to do it again this year. I have the title of my book entered and a short blurb written about it. But I still have yet to write a single word. I still have time to catch up. I will do this. This is going to be the year I write another novel in a month!
Still if I don't win the challenge again this year, I will enjoy being a part of NaNoWriMo for the third time. Being a part of this unique community of fellow writers each November is fun and worthwhile. So stop by and check out this strange place known as NaNoLand. Maybe you will find yourself writing that novel you've always meant to try your hand at in a month too.
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