Abunga Blog

Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short)? Technically it’s still unofficial, but to hundreds of thousands of aspiring novelists, the 30 days of November become a frenzied write-a-thon with millions of words penned to paper or typed to Word documents. 

NaNoWriMo is a non-profit organization started in 1999 as a group of people in San Francisco who wanted to challenge themselves to write a novel in a month. Before they knew it, the idea had spread, and demand was created. So they developed the program and website, allowing the hundreds of thousands of people who sign up to attempt the great novel writing adventure. 

As much as I adore reading, I have always been passionate about writing and wanted to do NaNoWriMo ever since I found out about it a couple of years ago. I finally got brave enough this year to challenge two other friends to do it with me, thinking they’d back out at the last minute. 

I was wrong. 

So on November 2, I officially signed up on the site and began writing my novel. The ultimate goal of NaNoWriMo? Write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. They even offer you a word count system where you can submit encrypted copies of your masterpiece (or lack thereof in my case) and have their “bots” count and validate your 50,000 words at the end of the month.

There’s no real prize for winning NaNoWriMo except for the shiny, virtual trophy and the knowledge that you completed the challenge, but it is surprisingly exciting to think that I’m writing 50,000 words in a month. 

When I started, however, I had no idea what I was going to write about. I gave up on one idea because I lost my notes and wasn’t sure how to frame it. Instead, I started writing a journal for a girl similar to myself during the month of November. (I know, real creative, right?) 

It took me until 10,000 words before I actually started liking my story. And by that time, the girl had changed enough that she was no longer my alter ego but an actual character writing her own journal. She, like me, writes a lot, so her journal entries are anywhere from 1,000 to 5,000 words in length. (It helps bolster my word count for her to be verbose!)

Now, one of my biggest problems with NaNoWriMo is the lack of editing. I constantly police what I write and edit until I’m satisfied. Having to write 50,000 words in 30 days makes it impossible for me to edit each chapter as I go along. That’s part of the reason I hated it so much at first. It’s very hard for me to write something and not go back and change it. But in order to get my 50,000 words, that is exactly what I’m doing. 

Right now, I haven’t written anything for four days, and I originally hoped to get my 50,000 words finished before the end of this week. It would give me a much-needed break from worrying about finishing the novel on time and allow me to enjoy Thanksgiving week more. Unfortunately, I don’t think that’s going to happen. 

I am, however, still plugging along, normally writing around 4,000 words per entry, which I think is pretty good considering the site recommends writing 1,333 words per day to get to the 50,000 mark. 

Now that it’s November 21, I have to buckle down and really dig in if I’m going to reach 50,000 by November 30. It’s going to be scary to go back and read what I wrote originally, but I think that if I can write 50,000 words this year, it will be all the more motivation to go back next year and write an actual novel of worth. So, I can use all the encouragement I can get!

I am currently sitting on 30,260 words (as you can tell by the image above, which tracks my word count), and I want to get to 40,000 by Sunday night. We’ll see how that goes. I’ll be writing a lot, but, like I said, it’s my passion. I think I can make it. 

What about you? Have you ever heard of NaNoWriMo? Have you ever done it? Got any advice for this aspiring author? I’d love to hear from you, and go by NaNoWriMo’s site because they have lots of interesting things to offer visitors!

Oh, and by the way, in case you were wondering what my novel’s title is, it’s “Insert Witty Title Here.” I know, creative, right?  

-Rachel