NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month for those who don’t do acronyms, is fast upon us. This will be my first year taking part, but it appears to be an excuse for writers to spend inordinate amounts of time at their keyboards writing bad fiction as quickly as possible. The goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days.
This comes out to right around 1,667 words a day. That really doesn’t sound like much in the grand scheme of things. Stephen King apparently does around 4,000 a day. At that rate, he would be done in under two weeks, leaving the rest of the month for college football and Thanksgiving turkey. 50,000 probably isn’t that much for any full-time writer, provided they weren’t going to take time to polish every page prior to proceeding.
But, for the rest of us, those who spend 30, 4o, 50, or more hours a week plugging away at a day job, then trying to find time to plug away at a keyboard in our spare time, 50,000 can be a bit of an obstacle.
1,667 isn’t much on its own. The real difficulty is doing it every day for 30 days. What is the last thing you did every day, without fail, for thirty days? There are few things that you are truly able to find time for every day, especially in a month that includes a major holiday that for a lot of people requires travel.
My own goal will be 2,000 words a day. Chances are, due to my job, if nothing else, there will be a couple of days during which I don’t have time to write. Should that happen, I want to be on pace to be well over 50,000.
It isn’t that I need motivation to write. I don’t. I have completed and submitted nine stories in the last two months. Productivity hasn’t been much of an issue. What I really need is support in writing a novel. I’ve never written a piece of fiction longer than 8,000 words. Finishing a novel would be the realization of a dream, of sorts.
November will be my excuse to put all my other stories aside and work only on my novel. I think I have a good concept. I have found some interesting characters. My prep work has been going well. I think I am ready. So, let’s get to it. I’ll try to keep you all updated on how it is going.
Best of luck to all of those who are going to take part. Keep punching that keyboard and I’ll see you at 50,000 on the 3oth.
Here we go.
This is also my first year. However, motivation is a big problem. I haven’t been able to write much and have a hard time ‘getting to it.’ Plus, I have never written anything over 12k words. I am having some major doubt issues, but my account at nanowrimo.org is up.
Just to mention, my online journal is going to doing a lot of ‘cheerleading’ for NaNoWriMo. The announcement will be out on 10/25.
http://www.threewordsonestory.com
Best of luck with NaNo this year! 😀 … I definitely know what you mean about doing it every day – quite honestly, November is the only month I actually do try to write every day (although the past couple of month there have been one or two ‘off’ days, where I’ve been stranded in the middle of the country without a laptop! Can’t complain, though – I love seeing my family) … 2,000 a day is certainly do-able, so again, best of luck! See you at the finish line!
I’ll be rooting for you, Jack, along with all the other NaNo enthusiasts… including myself. I’m already 12,000 words into my current novel (I’m trying to keep busy while my other project is currently being queried) so, NaNo will just fit into my already established routine. Still, I welcome the chance to come together as writers and push ourselves to achieve more than we thought we could. Even if it’s as you said, “bad fiction”, I’ve come to know that quite often you have to write a lot of bad to get to the good. Keep tapping those keys!