It's That Time of Year!

Some people consider the first day of autumn to be the beginning of the holiday season, while others wait until after Halloween. Everyone has their own special way to commemorate the coming of the holiday season, and writers are no exception. However, the landmark event that kicks off the holiday season for most writers is November 1st - the official beginning of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). This event starts off November with little fanfare, similar to the All Saints Day that is also recognized by many as November 1st, and they share similar qualities: Not many people know they exist, and even fewer people participate, but for some people it's a very sacred day.

Now, the importance of this special occasion (NaNoWriMo, not All Saints Day) is to motivate writers to write the first draft of a novel in a month - specifically, November. It doesn't have to be perfect, or even publishable at this point, it just has the be written from beginning to end. It might sound daunting, and it is, but that's the whole point - the mission of typing 2,000 words onto a page every day (even on Thanksgiving), and realizing just what can be created with such concerted effort. (Side note: For those who think it's impossible, Stephen King wrote The Running Man in a week and on a typewriter, so it can be done) Incidentally, the NaNoWriMo run will also push you into certain habits I often refer to, and make them a part of your process, but that's another story. 

This year I am not participating in the NaNoWriMo marathon - I have a few manuscripts that need my attention already. However, I am offering all my readers an opportunity to take on a similar challenge, but nothing so harsh as creating a novel. Rather, my challenge is this. Write something every day. Something narrative, something creative, something more than just a shopping list. It can be a haiku, a paragraph about your feelings, a description of your cat as he throws up in the hall - anything that forces you to create through words. It's not the daunting task of making a 60,000-word manuscript, but it does get the habits going. Something as simple as that, when done for 30 days, can have a profound effect on your writing process.

So now I wish you all good luck on your NaNoWriMo writing adventure, whichever it may be. I look forward to plenty of interesting reactions to this ongoing exercise, and possibly some personal revelations about your writing, your process, or some ideas that wandered into your mind and allowed you to think about something in a new way. Just remember that it's very possible to accomplish this task; the important part is trying to do it.

And even though Stephen King wrote The Running Man in a week, take that with a grain of salt. He was not exactly clean or sober at the time, so he had a little extra energy.