Oh, if only I were as prolific in writing as Williams was in adlibbing!
Once again – glutton for punishment I am, I participated in this year’s National Novel Writing Month or simply NaNoWriMo as many, sometimes cringingly, call it. In layman’s terms I had write 50,000 words of my story/novel in 30 days.
Why 50k and calling it a novel? I’ll let the NaNoWriMo website explain it:
We’ve found that 50,000 words is a challenging but achievable goal for many people, even folks with full-time jobs and children. And, though on the shorter side, it’s definitely long enough to be considered a novel: 50,000 words is about the length of The Great Gatsby.
We define a novel as “a lengthy work of fiction.” Beyond that, we let you decide whether what you’re writing falls under the heading of “novel.” In short: If you believe you’re writing a novel, we believe you’re writing a novel, too.
Nanowrimo website
As a fan fiction writer I use it motivate me to go for those longer multi-chapter stories in the warren of plot bunnies running amok among the dust bunnies in my head. I am verbose – I know this. I have a fic out there that took over 277k words and eighteen months of my life to tell. So, I at least start the stories and complete them once NaNoWriMo is over.
I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo off and on for a few years now. I believe they chose November because here in the States, at least, Thanksgiving at the end of the month throws a huge wrench in the gears of obtaining that 50,000 words. When I first started there were a couple of years where I had not managed my time well and had fallen far short of the goal. Now I try to hustle at the beginning of the month, with a personal goal of reaching the 50k by the Tuesday before Thanksgiving. Because I know from experience nothing is getting done that Wednesday thru Friday.
Notice I said try to. I was more than annoyed with myself this year to have only reached 42823 words on the morning of the 22nd. I knew there was no way I was typing over 7k words in a single day. Between preparing for, celebrating during, cleaning up after Thanksgiving my brain just had to accept the fact that not another word was going to be typed until Saturday morning the earliest. Yeah – between family staying the weekend, and I’ll be honest – alcohol, lots of alcohol, Saturday morning at the earliest became Sunday evening before I could write again. It took until last night, but I crossed the Rubicon with 53517 words and two days to spare!
No, this year’s so called novel “Rock Star” is not even close to complete. I estimate another 20k, but a chunk is done, and the was the goal. So now I get to breathe for a moment, pull out the big red editor pencil and go from there.
Let’s see how others are goal tending this Tuesday…
Raivenne-lations 
You’re doing well! You are taking this on, which takes a massive amount of courage! I’ve often thought of writing a novel, but there’s something about the length of it that overwhelms me. Maybe next November I’ll reconsider…
Thanks! It’s definitely about time management. And not thinking about editing until the month is over. If I looked at it before I reached the goal it would never get done. T😎
Wow–congratulations! I admire you for being the kind of writer who can keep moving forward and get words on the page at such high volume. What an act of perseverance NaNoWriMo is! I’ve tried (and failed) it exactly once. I hope you have big plans for how you will reward yourself for reaching such a goal!
Thanks Amy. The reward is to not berate myself too much as I edit. (I am my own WORST critic.) Then keep writing and hope to have a finished product for posting by mid January.
Congratulations on reaching your goal. I am a person of few words, most of the time, so trying to put 50,000 words down is dome semblance of a story is beyond my capabilities . So, when can we expect a published copy of your story?
Thanks Bob. I luck out in that I am a natural storyteller. As this is for fanfiction and I’m not even halfway through with the tale, it will be at least mid January before I’m ready to post chapters.