Tomorrow begins NaNoWriMo! Woo-hoo!!
I have to tell you, I have never completed the NaNoWriMo in November. I love the concept dearly, but I have to believe that whoever thought writing 50,000 words in 30 days during a month which includes a major holiday was never a schoolteacher or anyone with a day job. I mean, come on.
And yet, people do it! (The slew of horribly rushed and minimally edited self-published ebooks every January is proof, amirite?)
And sometimes the NaNoWriMo yields extraordinarily wonderful results. (See also: The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, which was reputedly her NaNoWriMo project for three years.) So yes, people do it.
But I do not. With my familial and employment obligations, it would be utter madness for me even to try. But I heartily cheer on those who do! Genuinely! I am in awe and significant envy of those who have the ability to “win” NaNoWriMo in November. I just can’t manage that myself — at least, not at this precise time.
But I do still, sort of, participate. I make the commitment to just write something every day in November. Maybe it’s a blog post or a scene or a revision to a chapter in a novel I’m already working on, or maybe it’s something else like a poem or a flash story or a micro-essay, but I do it. And I will again this year. I’m working on an R&R of one novel and drafting another, so those are my more pressing manuscript projects. (But they are not my only ones, so I’ve got plenty to work on in case I get stuck on or finish those — both unlikely circumstances at this point, though knock on wood.)
But my earworm today is going to help us get pumped up for NaNoWriMo! Yes, it is! Do you know why??
I present to you The Proclaimers.
Sappho's Torque 
I feel like the habits instilled by NaNo far outweigh the actual word count. I wonder how many people have kept their daily writing habit after participating in the event. I myself have never joined, but I also write every day (albeit at a much smaller word count than 1,667). Anyway, wishing you all the best!
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I agree, the habits are valuable! Not everyone can handle the daily practice, and I’m often fairly wiped out by the end of November for doing it, but that’s less about the writing itself and more about having to cram it in around everything else (like the day job). But I try to write as often as I can, and if that means just 4-5 days a week, I call that success. 🙂
Wishing you the best, too!
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I like writing something every day!
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i’m “participating” too! (i put participating in quotes ‘cos i’m a “rebel” doing a modified version). If’n you want, friend/buddy/whatever wif me. My handle is the ever creative: Aeryk Pierson. Ha!
Good writing!
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Woot! I’m on there as well; in fact I think we’re already connected. However, I have not been posting there this month. I’m going to try and skip that this time around and see whether taking away some of that pressure makes it easier and less stressful to get the work done. We shall see!
I’m also being rebellious and just trying to write something, not reach 50K words on one manuscript specifically. The first two days I made blog posts, which were very useful and needed to be done anyway. 😉 Tonight I will try editing a novel chapter that my Wednesday night critique group will be looking at next week!
Then my other big project for this month will be finishing editing another novel for an R&R. Here’s hoping. 😉 I’ll likely post updates here and/or on my Facebook author page periodically.
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