NaNoWriMo

What is NaNoWriMo? Anyone have a clue? Unless you're a contemplative writer, an aspiring author, or a nerdy person like me, you probably haven't heard of it before. It stands for "National Novel Writing Month". Last year, over 250,000 aspiring authors banned together to work on writing an entire novel during the month of November. 843 people succeeded in penning a book at least 50,000 words long!

Everyone who participated joined up on this website, which explains NaNoWriMo more thoroughly. What's the reward? Well... not much, usually. A few brilliants will have their edited works published later on. For most, though, the knowledge that they have accomplished writing an entire book is reward enough. Perhaps the book will be shared with a few friends and family. Or maybe personal development is the key goal. It certainly takes a lot of patience, endurance, creativity, and determination!

I've known about NaNoWriMo for several years. Each time the month of November rolled around, I was always too busy with life and other hobbies to think about writing a long novel. But this year... hmmm. Maybe it's time. I'd love to push myself to actually finish a story for once! I've started out writing down various stories quite often, only to get side-tracked or bored or lazy, and none of them have ever been completed. In order to finish the minimum requirement of 50,000 words, I'd have to write approximately 1,667 words per day, which is about three essays worth of material! That is an intimidating number already. My reasons to write would be simply to follow the journey, complete a life-time goal, and see where the story goes.

Creativity itself doesn't care at all about results - the only thing it craves is the process.  Learn to love the process and let whatever happens next happen, without fussing too much about it.  Work like a monk, or a mule, or some other representative metaphor for diligence.  Love the work. - Elizabeth Gilbert

There are a few options as to what I could write. There are old story ideas, but they feel slow. Something new and exciting needs to happen. My dream about the people with two hearts has been rolling around my head for weeks, developing more characters and beginning to turn into a world of its own. This would probably be a youth or young adult novel.

The other idea is to write a story based on Chris's ancestors. He has been doing genealogical research lately, and has discovered some intriguing history about his long-ago relatives, too. There are stories of a rich accountant's daughter, who always wanted to be a teacher but was forbidden to because she was female, marrying a coal miner, despite her family's disapproval and her father's attempt to bribe her away with a diamond ring. Doesn't that sound interesting? Even though I couldn't find out all the details, of course, I'd love to take the true parts of the history and let a new story blossom from its roots.

So... am I crazy? Are these ideas lame? Is my writing lame? Could I make enough time in my daily life for a month to write a whole freaking novel? Am I dreaming out of my league? AM I CRAZY?

Those are the questions I have.

Anyone else crazy enough to try NaNoWriMo?