It's the Most Wonderful Time of the Year (for writers)

Anyone who is a regular reader of this blog knows already that this post has nothing to do with the holiday season. Rather, today is the kickoff of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. During this fine month of celebration, writers task themselves with the mission of writing an entire novel in one month - that's a minimum of 50,000 words between now and the end of November. It's a daunting task, forcing writers to kick into full-on creative mode and bring forth a truly epic story... or just something remotely readable. Many will try, some will succeed. All will gain something from this endeavor.

So, if you do the math (which writers often loathe doing), this works out to 1,667 typed words a day, every day, for thirty days. Do you have your words for the day typed up? I sure don't. I'm not participating this year, mostly because any idea I have for a story is already partially typed up, and I have a bunch of other life things to manage as well. Oh - there's also the other holidays as well, which I really should start preparing for. However, I am not letting a good NaNoWriMo go to waste, so I will get something from this endeavor. Just not a novel.

My task - and something that I offer up to all my readers - is to write something every day. It doesn't have to be a chapter or a full essay every time. On cheat days it can be a poem, a haiku even. Just something that allows you to put that part of your brain to work with the process of creation each and every day. When you curl up under the blankets at night, you should be able to reflect upon having brought something new into the world through your words.

Now, this is a little different than NaNoWriMo in one special way. If you decide to write this grand novel, your goal is to write a complete story of at least 50,000 words by the end of the month. You can have days where you type nothing, as long as you have days where you make up for that lapse. If you write 2,000+ words a day, you could theoretically take five days off - perhaps even Thanksgiving - and still complete your mission. My writing assignment, however, does not require volume as much as it requires consistency. No days off. No time out. And yes, that means you need to write something on Thanksgiving as well. Thirty days, every day. Did it just become a little more difficult?

NaNoWriMo is very much about helping writers realize that they can, in fact, write a novel if they want. It's a condensed version of the process, but an important lesson nevertheless. My mission is to get you to develop one of the writing habits necessary for developing the creative process. If you have to create something every day, and hold yourself to that rule, you start thinking about different things, different ways to approach situations. You look for that thing that sparks your creativity. And by the end of thirty days, you hopefully will have discovered something new to add to your creative process. 

For those of you who are doing NaNoWriMo this year, the best of luck, and I look forward to hearing about your progress. For those who are trying my mission, please drop a comment about anything you've written that really clicked in your head. But in any case, enjoy this most festive month of writing! (and Thanksgiving as well)