Do You NaNoWriMo?

If you asked me about NaNoWriMo at this time last year, I would have asked you what language you were speaking. 

I had no idea National Novel Writing Month existed until I noticed a button on a friend’s blog and followed it to to the main site. November was already a few days old, but nearly 200,000 writers worldwide were in a frenzy to complete a 50,000 word novel in thirty days.

I spent the entire afternoon thinking they were all insane.  No one could finish a novel in thirty days…right?  I’d been working for eight months and only had 30K words to show for it. But this nagging little voice in my head kept saying, “You’ll never know unless you try.”

So I did.

There were only a few days when I actually hit the daily mark of 1,500 words, but I was still cranking out ten times more words per week than usual. And it felt awesome. For the first time I felt like a real writer…not someone who wrote as a hobby. 

The best part about NaNoWriMo (for me at least) was the accountability. One of my CPs was participating and would send me an email every evening asking where my pages were. With her encouragement, I wrote 30,000 words in November and finished SAW IT COMING the second week of December.  By February, I was querying and you know the rest of the story.

I don’t intend to write an entire novel in November.  It’s not possible for me unless I give away my kids (not happening).  But, I’m still setting a pretty high goal — 30K again.  It feels goods to have a bar to reach!

On Wednesday, I’ll post about the steps I’m taking to help me prep for November. Hopefully I’ll be a little more organized (read: less crazy) this year than last. 

Are you going to NaNoWriMo this year?  Why or why not?  No judgement either way.  I’m just interested!

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