I have this friend from college named Colin Fanning. In case you’re wondering, yes, he is amazing. He mentioned to me one year that there’s this crazy program called National Novel Writing Month, and told me I should do it.
C’mon Maggie, you’re always writing anyway. You’d love it, he said.
No freaking way, I told him. I mean, seriously CFan, do you see the bags under my eyes already? I haven’t slept in three days.
(See what I did there? That’s called hyperbole — it’s a writing convention.)
It’s been about four years since the first time Colin mentioned it to me. And every year in November, someone casually mentions NaNoWriMo, and I sort of wince and go Ew. No thanks.
Not this year. I just signed up.
Look what I did!
Here’s the complicated thought process that went through my head: Yo. Maggie. Remember that time you said you were going to write that book and have it finished by June? Well, you still haven’t done it.
I’m kind of hoping this will give me the jumpstart I need to really get this project off the ground. Plus, I bought a sweet new computer yesterday, which I hope will also serve as an incentive — because who doesn’t look for an excuse to play with a new toy, right?
So where am I starting from? Well, scratch mostly. I just named my main character about 15 minutes ago, from this very chair in a Stamford Starbucks. It was a very scientific process.
I've been using BabyNames.Com to name characters since I was 13 years old.
And here’s what I have to do:
By Nov. 30, I’m supposed to have a completed 50,000 word novel. Let’s do the math on that one. According to the calculator on my snazzy new computer, that means I need to write an average of 1,666.7 words per day.
Of course, when I’m at work, I usually measure my writing in inches, rather than words. There are about 35 words in a newsprint inch, and a typical daily story is about 20 inches long.
So basically, I just signed up to write two additional news stories a day… #OhBoy
All I have to say is: hee!
…Well, except that’s totally not all I have to say, because you know how much I like to hear myself talk. But ANYWAY, I’m so happy you’re going to give NaNoWriMo a try this year! It’s kind of a blast. (Despite the fact that I only tried it once and I got to just shy of 33,000 words before throwing up my hands in disgust and wailing, “Oh my god, crap, this is all crap, why did I ever try to write a novel, why are these characters SO BORING, why, why?” and getting a bunch of strange looks from the other people in the coffee shop at the time.)
There’s something about taking on such a huge, zany project–and about the community that’s built into it, all the folks along for the ride who cheer you on and offer convoluted-plot sympathy and match you word for word–and about the messiness of it, giving yourself license to write bad cliches and unsympathetic characters and maybe not even finish but that’s okay too, that embodies so much of what I believe about creativity and art and not taking ourselves quite as seriously as we do.
If I weren’t in the middle of PeGraSchoPaWriHe (Personal Grad-School Paper-Writing Hell), I’d totally join you. But I feel like I should task myself with some sort of project, since you’re being so adventurous. Maybe post on Nine Points every day for the month of November and try to revive that cold husk of a blog?
At any rate, I love you and you can totally kick those 50,000 words’ butts. All of them. Woo!
By: Colin on October 15, 2011
at 8:00 pm
Good luck with your first Nanowrimo! This will be my third year and I love it. (Even if I crashed and burned the second year.) The key thing (which will be hard for you as a journalist) is to not spend any time editing and rewriting as you go along. Just write, write, write!! Have fun!
By: Kitty on October 15, 2011
at 8:01 pm
So . . . Instead of writing today’s 1,500 words for NaNoWriMo, you blogged about writing today’s 1,500 words for NaNoWriMo? Guess it’s NaProInsOWriMo.
By: R Sorokanich on October 15, 2011
at 8:18 pm
Good for you, Maggie. Let us know how the project matures.
By: Roger Johnson on October 18, 2011
at 12:00 pm