Ah, November. The month of Thanksgiving, a bunch of people not shaving for reasons I don't really understand, my birthday, and National Novel Writing!
Yes, November is National Novel Writing Month, abbreviated Nanowrimo. It's a month where anyone who wants to is challenged to write a novel that is at least 50,000 words over the course of November. It can be about anything. The whole point of the exercise is to get words down on paper. No editing, no revising, no trying to make it the best novel ever. That will come later (in December and January). But November is all about just writing the damn thing and reaching the word count. Let your ideas flow! Get creative! Go nuts! Just write!
Now, 50,000 words is a lot of words. One of my articles for Odyssey is usually roughly 500 words. Participating in Nanowrimo is the equivalent of writing about 100 Odyssey articles.
...Yeah.
I've been trying to participate in Nanowrimo every year since I found out about it in fourth grade. My mom had come in with cupcakes for my class on my birthday (as you do in elementary school), and then she and my teacher stood at the front of the class and announced that they were giving us a challenge. Write 50,000 words as a whole class, and we'd get a pizza party at the end of the month. Now, I don't know how much any of you remember about elementary school, but pizza parties were the shit. They were the ultimate incentive. And all we had to do was write stories. I was thrilled!
And so, every Tuesday for the rest of the month, my class would get out our notebooks, my mom would come in with hot chocolate, and we'd just write for an hour about anything we wanted. And you know what? We got that pizza party, because we wrote over 60,000 words as a class. We were blown away! We didn't know we had it in us! It was such a popular activity that the next year, when the school wouldn't let our teacher set aside class time for Nanowrimo, everyone in my class came across the street with me to my house and we'd write at my house for an hour every Tuesday afternoon. It was an amazing experience.
And I've been trying to participate in Nanowrimo ever since. But I've never reached that 50,000 word mark. It's a spot of personal shame in my life.
I've just always been so busy! You know how it is. You try to finish that fun side project, but life happens and it keeps falling through the cracks until it's November 30 and you've written 2,000 words.
Which, at least, is more than you had at the start, right?
But participating in Nanowrimo is a big, time-consuming project. And it's hard. On those days when you just don't want to write, or the words just aren't coming, you still have to write. You still have to try and get something down on paper. It becomes a chore, and you hate every second of it.
But. If you stick with it, and really try every day, you'll find there are days when the words flow so easily you almost can't write fast enough to get them out. You'll reach the daily 1,667 words and just keep going, not stopping until you're wrung dry. It's the best feeling.
That's why I'm doing Nanowrimo this year. That's why, among the bustle of college and the seemingly endless amounts of homework and papers and projects and extra curriculars, I am going to make myself sit down with my computer once a day and write 1,667 words. Because I want to get that feeling, that feeling like you're flying, and your fingers move across the keyboard like flapping wings keeping you aloft. Because I want to finally feel the thrill of having a full length novel saved on my computer. Because, even if I'm bogged down in the last half of the semester and I feel like I'm drowning, I want to do something that will lift me up and bring me joy. Because I love writing, and Nanowrimo is the perfect excuse to practice.
Because practice is the only way anything would ever get done.
Now I challenge you to go write a novel. It can be about your childhood, a fantasy world you made up, a super cliche spaceship, or a collection of short stories (like I'm doing). It can be happy, sad, exciting, or anything above, beyond, and in between. I only have one rule.
Just keep writing.
Want to make it feel official? Go to nanowrimo.org and create an account! You can check your word count, earn badges, and connect with other writers. It actually helps you want to write. Trust me.
