To Nano or Not to Nano

To Nano or Not to Nano

It’s November 1 (probably Nov. 2 by the time this gets posted), and that brings to mind the annual question, should I participate in Nanowrimo. What’s that you ask? Excellent question. The short answer, it is National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel by November 30. The long answer? I’ll let the experts at www.nanowrimo.org explain things.  A few years ago, I participated in Nanowrimo for a week, then life took over and only managed 6000 words. That wasn’t much of a start, but it was the firm shove I needed; The Cake Effect…

It’s November 1 (probably Nov. 2 by the time this gets posted), and that brings to mind the annual question, should I participate in Nanowrimo. What’s that you ask? Excellent question. The short answer, it is National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel by November 30. The long answer? I’ll let the experts at www.nanowrimo.org explain things. 

A few years ago, I participated in Nanowrimo for a week, then life took over and only managed 6000 words. That wasn’t much of a start, but it was the firm shove I needed; The Cake Effect began. During that week, I wrote without caring where I was going, who I created, or if there were plot holes the size of the Grand Canyon. I just wrote. And it was glorious, freeing, and crazy fun. I knew I had to finish the story, and several months later I did.

Last year during Nanowrimo, I was still revising, so I didn’t participate. This year, well, I’ve been equivocating for a week. (holy crap, I think I just used equivocate correctly, take that MU professor who gave me the worst grade ever on a paper about Macbeth’s equivocating – booyah!). I couldn’t commit to an idea; one requires research I haven’t done yet, the other favorite idea is YA (young adult), a genre I love, but didn’t plan to write. 

But Nanowrimo isn’t about writing the most sensible, most likely to get published book; it’s about writing with passion and recklessness, letting the words flow like melted wax in a dominatrix’s dungeon (yeah – sometimes I go there – well, not THERE). So, I’m doing it. I signed up today and will log my word count on the site. I’ll need to average 2000 words a day to finish. So, dear reader, time to let my fingers dance. To track my progress, I’m reintroducing the word count below.  

Nanowrimo Word Count: 0

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