Post Purpose
- Motivate others to write creatively.
- Motivate me for this year’s NaNoWriMo event.
Why I Participate
This year (2016) will be my fifteenth year participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). In 2002, I read an article in The Columbian newspaper about National Novel Writing Month on the 5th of November, five days into the 30-day event. I had often tried to write a fiction book since my teen years but had failed to make it further than an idea and half a chapter. After reading the article, I signed up that day with the website and starting writing.
At the end of the month, I had a 50,000+ word police procedural novella and an addiction to writing.
The first three years I successfully completed the challenge and then I went through a seven-year slump. Finally, in 2012, I managed to win again and caught the fire for writing. Last year I finally tied my losses with seven wins. This year, I’m hoping to get permanently in the win column.
I’ve already decided to write a superhero origin story—something I’ve never attempted before. For me, this is the great joy of NaNoWriMo—you are free to explore creativity and write garbage. It’s all for fun and when it’s over you don’t have to feel any expectation to do more with your work. Some of my pieces I am working on with a hope for eventual publication. All of them have served their purpose and bring me happiness as I look at them from time to time on the bookshelf.
For Others
I recommend National Novel Writing Month even if you are writing nonfiction or not seriously a writer at all. The experience of writing 50,000 words gave me a great deal of confidence in doing challenging things generally and helped my writing in academia and my career.
National Novel Writing Month is a free website that encourages writing. The traditional challenge is to write a 50,000-word novella from scratch. The site will encourage you to donate and to buy shirts and mugs and such, but no payment is required. It is a growing project that unites people in a fun writing challenge with lots of variations.
Working with NaNoWriMo gives you an opportunity to have regular feedback—via the word count bar and progress graph—as well as a supportive writing community. There are few problems other participants cannot help with. To be successful, you must average 1,667 words per day. Managing that kind of word count is quite doable, but does require some planning and commitment. There will be days you don’t want to write or, worse, want to write but don’t feel any inspiration.
The experience of getting through the challenges is helpful in many areas of life.
If you decide to sign up, give me a holler. On NaNoWriMo’s site, I’m Squeaks. Happy writing.