Since I was introduced to NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) in the year 2012, I became instantly infatuated. One month out of the year, the month of November, to dedicate your life to writing fifty thousand words in thirty days. I mean, how hard could it be, right? I was a “closet writer”, a shy, aspiring author. But my whole life, I’ve been a writer. I’ve written short stories, poems, journal entries, silly little songs and one first draft of what I called my “starter novel.” (You know the one that gets shoved in a desk drawer, regaled to the dark abyss, forgotten and dust covered, never to be seen by the light of day?)
Let me just say, for me, NaNoWriMo was harder than I thought. I participated in NaNoWriMo over the years, but the highest word count I accomplished was about thirty thousand words. I tell people that it’s a marathon for writers, only no running, just typing...until your fingers fall off or bleed. Okay, that’s a bit dramatic, but you get the point. And although I know that there are writers out there that may write more than that, for me it was a stretch.
Here’s the thing, over the years I had started to dread NaNoWriMo, while also riding the high of the anticipation of it. I’d ask myself, will this be the year I actually make it? That I’ll win the whole shebang? And then when the month of November inevitably ended, I’d silently end up with this sense of guilt, shame and self loathing for not reaching Fifty-K. I’d tell myself things like, well you wrote more than you would have, and so what if you’ve done your third draft of the same book? And yes, there were extenuating circumstances, like jobs, babies, mothering and life. I mean, it gave me a healthy admiration for the authors who work full time jobs, have families and still have the mental capacity to build worlds, describe scenes, plot away and make pages come to life. And it came to be that the year 2020, I finally, finally, completed the big Five-O, fifty thousand words. So here are some things I learned in this epic year completing NaNoWriMo.
No.1 - Having a Goal and Willing to Stretch - We can read all day about goal setting and pushing past our comfort zones. The difference for me this year was mindset, commitment and accountability. The mindset to actually believe I could accomplish it. I realized that in the past years, I had hoped I could, but this year the stretch was believing I could. I realized that I allowed my past experiences to inform my current circumstance, and that just gave me a bunch of self-limiting beliefs. The belief allowed the commitment to take hold somewhere deep inside me. I also realized that I needed some sort of accountability, and so while I religiously added my word count daily to the NaNoWriMo site, I also joined and participated in an online Facebook NaNoWriMo group. I was inspired by all the people in different stages in their writing journeys, dealing with the joy that was year 2020 and the sad sitcom playing in America called the Presidential Election. And through it all, the people in the group encouraged, inspired and pushed each other to persevere with their fellow writing goals.
No. 2 - Pantsing vs. Plotting - Over the years I’d done both. Some years I’d religiously try to outline each scene, plot each section, create sheets of character developments to ensure the completion of my goal. And some years I’d say, forget it, and just fly by the seat of my pants. For me neither option worked. I watched a lot of the NaNoWriMo free webinars that hosted published authors talking about different topics and their processes, and what I found was each writer had their own style. Some meticulously outlined, some just wrote by the seat of their pants and some were somewhere in between. That fact alone tremendously helped me to understand that the answer was inside me. I found that I couldn’t beat the story to death by outlining each fact and scene. I realized that it drove me completely insane and killed all the fun for me. When I wrote by the seat of my pants, the story ended up in falling off the yellow brick road to never reach a believable end, like Oz. It became pointless. So I decided to write a list of scenes that I wanted to follow and be open to inspiration. That way when I did fall off the carefully laid path, I could gently nudge myself back on without stifling my creativity.
No. 3 - Focusing on the Word Count Was Overwhelming - I’m a thinker and over analyzer. I know this about myself. Don’t worry, I’m working on it. I made “word count” too overwhelming and it made the goal seem like a mountain range instead of an ant hill. The best advice I received in the many webinars was from writer Mary Adkins. She recommended that instead of focusing on the daily word count, focus on the writing scene by scene. She had averaged a scene to be about seven hundred words, give or take, so write the amount of scenes to get to your daily word count. This helped immensely because I was able to switch my mindset and make it easier in my brain to accept. I still religiously tracked my word count, but it helped me accomplish my daily goal. And if I was short on my count one day, then I knew I could write more scenes the next day. And I found that I had only had four days in the month of November where I didn’t write. This also helped my goal be believable and achievable in my mind. I also learned that having a deadline also made me figure stuff out.
No. 4 - Quiet the Inner Critic (That Insidious Voice of Judgement) - At the start of COVID this year, I joined a writer’s workshop led by Janna Lopez for writers of all walks of life. I expected the workshop to be like all the others, tips and tricks on writing, the right way to do things, that sort of thing. It wasn’t. It was unexpectedly deeper and freeing. And while she does teach writing techniques, it’s about creating a conversation with yourself and your words. There is no judgement allowed. We are given random prompts and are expected to come up with whatever comes to mind and then we can share what we write. And what is inspiring is how the other writers perceive the prompts and what unexpected things come out of us when there is no judging it, over analyzing it, and outlining it. This helped with NaNoWriMo, because it allowed the words to flow, unfurling like a flower and come into creation. Letting go of judgement allowed the story to lead me down a beautiful, creative path, unfolding in the telling. And I learned when I let the story and characters inform me, that the part of the creation were the building blocks or words that built upon itself. When I wrote, just for myself, and took the audience out of it, there was freedom. Even in a work of fiction. And I found that the feeling of writing was addictive. I wrote a particular scene, and I got so wrapped up in it, I literally couldn’t sleep. I was buzzing, feeling high or like I had five cups of coffee, except without the jitters. I found that perfection is a form of self-sabotage. It’s not like I didn’t have the ability to go back and change things later.
I don’t know why this year NaNoWriMo was so much more than the previous years. Maybe it was the year 2020 and all the things it forced us to face and adapt to. Maybe it was just me growing as a person and a writer. But it was a huge milestone in my journey. There is no greater high that the feeling of accomplishment and self satisfaction when you achieve a goal. I learned that it doesn’t matter if other people (cough, cough, non-writers) don’t get it or care. I get it. I care. NaNoWriMo2020 was a tiny step in owning my personal power and growth. So my final words out there to all the writers, authors, poets, song writers or whoever, believe in yourself, stop the judgement, learn from mentors, but the most important thing, everything you need is within YOU!