At the beginning of this school year, I started writing my first book. It’s a collection of memoirs centered on my childhood. Some of the stories are fun to write, while others are deeply personal and difficult to put on paper. My goal is two-fold; I want to take a stab at being a writer and I think this project will propel me into a new phase of personal growth.
There is a faculty writing group on campus. I expressed an interest in the group to a colleague and briefly explained my writing project. She excitedly told me about National Novel Writing Month and connected me to a former student who participated last year. Here’s some information about NaNoWriMo’s website www.nanowrimo.org:
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000 word, (approximately 175 page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. This approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.
In 2010, we had over 200,000 participants. More than 30,000 of them crossed the 50K finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.
So now I have two writing projects- this blog and my book project. I’m making steady progress, but I started late and I’m definitely editing as I go which is slowing down my word count.
I already feel like a much stronger writer and I’m enjoying the Pep Talks that frequent my WriMo email account. I especially appreciated the no nonsense kick-in-the-pants from the former student with whom I connected. Over the winter holiday, I’m going to meet her in Portland. I was dragging my feet over the fact that I technically shouldn’t be a WriMo because memoirs aren’t fiction. But this young woman reminded me that our memories were mostly fiction (a fact that I ironically pointed out in my opening chapter) and I just needed to get writing. Screw the rules and just do it.
Taking her advice with humility, I haven’t looked back.
I’m hoping that the holiday break will prove to be extremely productive and my word count will soar. I’m learning a completely new level of self discipline as I arrive home each night, tired from a day of writing, reading, speaking and listening. I sit down at my terribly uncomfortable desk, turn on some music (Iron & Wine, Band of Horses, and the Twilight New Moon soundtrack have been saving my writing life), and start banging away.
In this way, I suppose I can relate to my students who come home from a long day of student teaching and classes and have to do homework. Maybe this experience is great preparation for when I enroll in a doctoral program J
So wish me well! I’ll be back when the month is over!
