My First #NaNoWriMo Baby is Here!

Trying to build a fruitful business, while also indulging in your love for reading and writing, is tough!  But, where there's a will, there's a way, right?! Right! Last November, I entered my first ever #NaNoWriMo.  To say I was shell shocked by the end is the understatement of the my minuscule writing career.  But, it was one of the most exhilarating experiences, ever!!!!

The book that I had envisioned completing, about a guy who abruptly ends things with his longtime high school and college sweetheart after he's chosen first in the NFL draft, felt special to me.  It meant that I was truly giving my personal writing career, not anything connected to marketing or public relations for clients, a serious go.  It meant that if I could get through the grueling ordeal of writing 50,000+ words in 30 days, I could absolutely do as much in a much more reasonable amount of time.

Yes, You SHOULD Take Part in #NanoWriMo!

I planned to update this more often through this process, but I have so many irons in the fire on so many different projects that have absolutely nothing to do with writing, I don't know how I've managed to write 20,000+ words in two weeks! But, I have!!!  Hurray!  That's the cover for it here in the post.  I can't wait to see how well it's received.

If you're reading this, there's a big chance you've been trying to figure out whether you should take part, next year (or maybe you're feeling ambitious and trying to decide if you can do it in the next two weeks!).  The answer is a resounding, YES! I've barely taken advantage of the wonderful motivational tools available, but I've found that other participants are very supportive via social media, tremendously so, and it's really helped me stay motivated.

Not to mention, I'm competitive as hell and the last thing I want to do is leave this thing undone.  So, I've actually set a goal of finishing just over a week early.  It's ambitious, yes, but it's not impossible.  One thing that this whole process has reminded me of is the absolute necessity to MAKE time for writing.  If you're going to do it, DO IT!  The only way you're going to make any progress on finishing a book is to actually spend time writing it. I can't tell you how many people have told me, "Gosh, I would like to write a book, but I just don't know where to begin."  My answer is always, "At the beginning!"  Most of what you write in that first draft will need some pretty heavy editing anyway, so you just have to get something on the page.

#NaNoWriMo…I’m DOING it!!!

For almost as long as I’ve had a Twitter account I can remember seeing this crazy hash tag floating around on my timeline every November. #NanoWriMo.  It looked like some strange language and I had no interest in learning more about it.  Then, about three years ago, I finally decided to click on it and I was amazed.  It turns out, it wasn't some strange language.  It was an acronym for National Novel Writing Month. Scores of individuals were writing about doing something that I thought was the craziest, most undo-able thing on earth – they were all trying to write a novel in 30 days.  An entire novel in 30 days!  It sounded like some sort of Chinese torture that a bunch of poor fools who’d found one another were engaging in and I didn’t want any part of it.

I thought to myself, “How in the heck can anybody write anything worth reading in 30 days?!” I also couldn’t imagine how anybody could find the time to do something so important…well.  I’m an English literature major, so I’ve spent years learning about the travails of some of our greatest literary giants as they put together some of the works we love and hold so dear, today.  I just could not imagine writing a novel in 30 days!  Even though, I’d always intended to do some writing of my own.  I’d just never got around to it.  But, if there’s one thing that anybody who’s ever finished a novel well knows, when you’ve been bitten by that bug, you have to get it out of you.