Week Two. How Are You, NaNoWriMo?
Woooooot Wooooot this has been a loony toony electionoony month! I’ve lived forty-six years in four days. I thought to myself, well heck, if I could bottle this kind of suspense and unleash it on my pages, John Grisham would be out of business. Do you know how I found out about the election results? Stephen King. No kidding. His were the first words I read on Twitter. Blue rum?
Speaking of words, how many are you up to?
According to the clown-masked, lavender scented word count that is the NaNoWriMo Path to Success graph, I should be at 16,670 words. I’m at 8,030. If I count this (and I will) it still won’t crack 10K. This is my 9th project that I’ve announced since 2011, well 5th NaNo with 4 Camps thrown in. My personal best is 8,545 total words. I’m going to beat that this year! My lifetime NaNo total is 38,187 words, as many as should be gotten to on November 23rd. Recount?
Did you create words last week? Were they spit through joy sobbing fits? Did you stare at CNN late at night and trance-like type democracy over and over again? Did you count that towards your total? Did you rethink your dark Goth tale after experiencing the purity of a hard-fought happy ending? Did you scream, I’m sick of living you!! And burn your copy of 1984?
This month has been a lot no matter your politics (spirit of unity ya!!). Now that we know, we can get back to the business of writing. Wait! Gotta organize in Georgia! Gah!
These times they are a’bonkers.
We’re Mary Shelley holed up writing Frankenstein while volcanic ash chokes the air outside. We’re Shakespeare banging out King Lear while the bubonic plague rages. We’re Cervantes languishing in a Turkish prison thinking up Don Quixote. We’re Hemingway surviving an Austrian mortar shell on the Italian front angrily muttering farewell, arms, ya jerks.
Our pages prevail. They’re anchors in the tempest, the quiet sitting and tinkering with words, the going inwards instead of looking outwards.
In the outer world, we stood in long lines to vote and wrote postcards to swing state voters and bit our nails to nubs. But in the interior world, we solve mysteries and invent time machines. We swoon over handsome strangers and dare to visit the cemetery at night. It’s a seriously sweet release. We are amazing, we NaNo-ers. When life goes broccoli, writing is the chocolate lava cake we all deserve.
Let us know how Week Two is treating you. There are badges to earn! Write-ins to attend! Forums to check out! Donations to be made to NaNoWriMo.org since it’s a nonprofit! And reach out if you want to submit a piece here. There’s always room for more at the Overlook Hotel…
Cheers!
Stephanie
❤ NaNoWriMo Board Member since 2019, participant since 2011 ❤
