The Value of NaNoWriMo

OK, I promise this will be my last accolade, or blowing my own horn for NaNoWriMo, but the value for NaNoWriMo (try typing that fifteen times!) is fantastic.

For me, it proved that I, (me, Daren, who ever since high school wanted to write, but was just too damn lazy and didn’t have the foggiest notion of where to start) could in fact write 50,000 words in a month. It also proved that I can actually write…”a little”. My grammar and punctuation sucked, and I am sure my eighth grade English teacher, Mrs. Washburn, would’ve bled all over my manuscript if she read it, but who cares….that’s what editing is for; editing and rewriting is what I will be doing after the holidays.

The other valuable lesson of NaNoWriMo (still typing!) was a solid taste of what it’s like to be a writer. We all had a deadline to meet and we all had to sit down and “just do it”. A lot of my contemporaries chose to cram at the end and stay up late multiple nights, but I took the day by day approach. If you divide 50,000 by 30 you get 1666.6666666666666666666666666667. So, I wrote at least that many words each day of November. Sure, I missed a few days and there were other days I was so lost in my writing that I closed the entire world out and cranked out double and one day triple base word count. I think Teddy Roosevelt said “How do you eat an elephant?....Bite by bite.” That, my friends, is exactly what I did. Day by day writing. I loved it. There were days when I actually could just write all day – and did…I imagined I was Stephen King, Ernest Hemingway, Dean Koontz, or any of the other thousand American writers.

Nano was fun and sort of a rite of passage for me. Completing it was a personal goal and I am extremely proud of myself for pulling it off. I look forward to participating in NaNoWriMo next year as well and am already excited about what my book will be about.

Moving Forward

Moving Forward

Now that NaNoWriMo is successfully behind me, I can go back to some semblance of a normal life. However, this time, now that I know I am capable of writing 50,000 words in a month, I am going to keep my writing goals more in line and more realistic.

I am already working on three projects…well maybe four; I gotta decide what my 2009 Writing Goals will be. First and foremost because of its importance is a white paper I intend to send to President Elect Obama on National Service. I will be posting this whitepaper once I am finished with it, but suffice to say our country needs some serious unity, direction, and development from within. Next is, I started a story about my brother-in-law called ‘My Own Private Idaho’. Initially, I wanted this to be my NaNoWriMo piece, but the thoughts really weren’t gelling so I put it on hold until now. I will probably use an outline to some degree for this project, but am still formulating the theme, tempo, and potential length. The final project is an interview and subsequent publishing of a magazine or newspaper article – I’m shooting for magazine.

So, near term, that’s it. Now that the boat is put up for the winter, I should have a bit more writing time available, however, I just took my children skiing yesterday (a rare treat for November!!!) and like any good ADD adult, I will always choose play over work…”life’s short eat dessert first!”.