It’s that time of year again, when writers around the world go a little bit crazy on the internet. The cause of all this chaos is a challenge. National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNO, where the goal is to achieve 50,000 words during the month of November.
In 2008, when I did NaNO for the first time, I was completely unprepared. I had no sooner finished my last assignment for University when I jumped straight into NaNO. I was days behind and I had a vague idea of what I was going to write. I had hoped to be a bit more organised the second time around. This time I did have a plot outline for my story, but at the last minute it seemed to have done a runner. Obviously, being organised for NaNo was not going to happen. Once again, I would be flying by the seat of my pants.
So far this week, my progress has been somewhat slow. Last week I was sick with the flu, which unfortunately, continues to hang around. My progress has also been slow for the simple reason that I’m editing as I go. A person just can’t afford to do that during NaNO. I had the same trouble last time in switching the internal editor off. If you’ve made a mistake, forget about it and keep going. One has plenty of time to fix it up when NaNO is over. In my last post, I was determined to write badly, now I officially have permission to do so!
It seems I’m destined for slow starts, but come home flying in the end. I just hope I can repeat that again this year.
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Hi Debbie,
This Nano Thing is a huge elephant of a task to undertake.To me,the most important thing is that I’m writing every day for the month of November regardless of word count. I’m trying to meet this challenge, by biting off one chunk at a time. I wish you all the best with this venture … Karen :))
Thanks Karen. I agree NaNO is a huge undertaking, and although I’m building up my word count, I sometimes wonder why I bother. Hopefully it will get better.
Best of luck with your own writing adventure.
Deb
Hi Debbie,
Please believe in yourself and your writing. All writing takes you forward as a writer and helps develop your craft and skills.
Debbie, you can do It!…Karen :))
Thanks Karen. Once again, you inspire me to keep on going! 🙂
Deb