I’m doing NaNoWriMo my way
And you should do it your way
NaNoWriMo has just one rule, and it’s a very strict one: You have to write 50'000 words from November 1st to November 30st.
This rule is strict, yes, but it’s also vague. It doesn’t tell you what happens before November 1st and neither does it reveal anything about December 1st. You know nothing except that you have to average 1'667 words every day if you want to arrive at 50'000 at the end of the month.
Daily writing might not work for you
Last year, I participated in NaNoWriMo for the first time. Here’s what happened:
I started writing on November 1st and wrote 1'667 words every day until around November 15th. Halfway through. Then I went to an Irish dance championship that kept me busy for four full days, leaving no time at all to write.
When I got back, I didn’t get back into writing. In fact, I never picked up my messy first quarter of the quarter of the half of a maybe-one-day-novel-manuscript again. Until recently.
On that day, I posted a list of my new year’s goals and resolutions on my old blog. The list started as follows:
- Write every day.
- Finish my novel by the end of the year.
You guessed it — I failed at #1. Writing every single day of the year is just something that doesn’t work for me, even though I’d love it. I love writing and I do it as often as I can, but there’s one thing I love more than writing, much more — I have to admit, and I have to dedicate most of my time to that thing. I don’t only have to, in fact, I really want to. If I had to choose one single activity in the world, I wouldn’t choose writing, I’d choose Irish dancing. Writing isn’t #1 on my priority list.
Yet, that doesn’t mean that writing is not a priority. It is; it’s priority #2 and it comes right after dancing. But on days when I can only make time for one of the two, I always choose dancing. Because I have to and because I want to.
What NaNoWriMo is about
Anyway, my second goal isn’t lost yet. 2016 last 2.5 more months, which means that I could still finish the first draft of my novel by the end of the year. And that’s what I’ll be trying to do during NaNoWriMo this November.
But this time, I won’t limit my writing time to November. I don’t care if I’m breaking the rules. For me, NaNoWriMo is really not about “winning” by copy-pasting my 50'000 words into the website’s counter at the end of November. NaNoWriMo is about writing as many words as I can, as often and as regularly as anyhow possible. It’s about stepping out of my comfort zone and pushing my limits.
I’m going to make NaNoWriMo work for me by starting to write before November 1st (I already started), by not starting at the beginning of a new novel but in the middle of one I already started, by writing as much as I possibly can and by pushing through November, and by never stopping unless I bring my story to an end, no matter whether that happens on November 10th, 30th or December 31th, 23:59, or — if all else fails — next year.
I think every writer should do NaNoWriMo their own way. For some, the actual rules might do wonders, while they might be too limiting for others. Who’s joining in this year?
