I have never done this before. Which is exactly the reason why I am going to do it! Check it out — November is National Novel Writing Month. (NaNoWriMo for short).
If I haven’t been able to write the thing in the last year, may as well try to cram it all into a month, right?
I can explain. A year ago I began a huge transition. I bought Scrivener, moved to the Midwest, and was “on the beach” (or “jobless” as we say in radio) until January. I was taking my time to write what little of the novel has gotten done. Yet the idea still consumes space in my brain each day. But I’ve spent all year working hard at my new job doing morning radio in Wichita and the novel is just a little tiny Scrivener file still.
It needs love and life and energy and attention and whatever else I can give it.
So I guess I’ll be hanging onto my cracked Macbook I was going to send in for repairs. I’m not giving up the machine until December now. By then, I should be so tired of looking at it because I’ll spend the next month trying to get to the 50,000-word mark on my novel.
Want some more NaNoWriMo inspiration? Check out how some other Mac geeks are getting into it.
There’s another reason to force myself into a November of NaNoWriMo. I am too busy to write. Certain things have sat on a back burner for a while because I’ve been busy at the radio station. It’s not just the novel I want to rekindle, it’s several items I’ve been writing in my very small amount of spare time. I am more than anything challenging myself to find the time and space to fit my writing into my lifestyle.
It’s a lifestyle where a normal Monday for me turned into needing to do a live broadcast I didn’t know I needed to do as well as a couple hours worth of “due immediately” type work that I should’ve done last week but didn’t have time to do… I have the same 24 hours as anyone else. And a 12-hour -a-day job. Five hours of work I didn’t realize I had to do popped up into my day today.
But this is the challenge. Even on the impossible day, can I fit the writing in? The training at the gym didn’t happen today, but I am getting some writing in — at least on my blog! It is at least related to the NaNoWriMo project.
The project also entices me because there are these write-ins scheduled all the time. I’d like to meet more local writers (I’ve met one) and this seems like a great networking opportunity. With my work schedule (yes, that again) I haven’t been able to check out the Kansas Association of Writers meetings yet, much less write something to share at such a meeting.
So those are my motivations to partake in the NaNoWriMo this month. Will I finish the novel? Will I make it to 50,000 words? Will I give up and just send in the cracked Macbook to just be fixed already?
Let me just find out…
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Writer Heather Larson 