
The Most Wonderful Time of the Year – NaNoWriMo Time!
It’s NaNoWriMo time! Time to sharpen those pencils if you are old-school, or prepare to hit that keyboard to write 50,000 words in one month. Earlier this week I wrote about the reasons why I love November in my post, Season of Gratitude. To those reasons I add NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month.
Past NaNoWriMos
I discovered NaNoWriMo five years ago and have been participating each year since then. In the five years that I have participated, I reached the finish line four times. Not a bad record. The one year I didn’t finish, I simply wasn’t ready to write a new novel. Instead I worked on a non-fiction book I had been putting off writing for several years and finished it. An accomplishment even though it was not 50,000 words long.
I look forward to NaNoWriMo each year. I love the idea of focusing on writing the first draft of a novel, putting other ideas and chores aside in order to focus. It’s so much fun! I’ve had the idea for this book for several years and have been prepping for the last year. The story will take me back in time to the pre-civil war era and the underground railroad and to present day Detroit, besides still having our friends from Cascade Falls.
It’s exciting to think I’m finally going to start putting the words down on paper. I wonder where the story will take me.
Whereas some people hate writing that first draft, struggle to get it down, then relish the editing process, I love coming up with the first draft. I know it’s far from finished and will require editing before being ready to be published, but I don’t worry about that. I let the ideas flow. I never know exactly what will come out of my pen. That’s the creative process and I love it.
This Year NaNoWriMo
This year, I’m going into NaNoWriMo with some apprehension because I’ve yet to come up with 50,000 words in my summer WIP (work in progress), book seven in my Dancing through Life Series. At 48,000 words, I’m setting it aside for a while to work on my next book. I’m hoping that the process of writing book eight of my series will give me some insights to further flesh out book seven.
So, welcome November and the challenge of NaNoWriMo! What will I learn this year? What adventures will you take me on? Join me. I’ll be doing regular progress reports each week.
What about you? Are you participating in NaNoWriMo? Have you always wanted to try writing a novel but never seemed to find the time? Now is the time! You’ll never know what you have within you till you try. After all, it’s the most wonderful time of the year!
(Picture is from previous NaNoWriMos of my writing buddy, Montana, the fat cat. We had to put Montana down last year, after 19 years. Gone but not forgotten.)
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