I am not a serious person most of the time. Anyone who reads this blog has probably realized that most of this is that is written is flights of fantasy and moments of whimsy. Sometimes a person needs moments of whimsy to get through the day, week, even next ten minutes. So, it is probably come as a great shock to many, that I do have moments of utter and complete seriousness and the thoughts of tyranny and terror do not constantly run through my mind.
We are about to experience one of those serious moments. If you want to skip this posting and perhaps read an old posting or wait for a new posting of something of utter whimsy, check back next week. I completely understand. I might just do the same later. Right now I want to talk to you about something very near and dear to my heart. I want to share with you NaNoWriMo.
A lot of people don’t know what NaNoWriMo is. For a long time I didn’t either and I had no idea what I was missing. The acronym is short for National Novel Writing Month. For those that participate, they just call it NaNo. Long and short story is that every November, from the 1st to the 30th you have the creative challenge of writing 50,000 words, which is equal to about 1,667 words a day, and are encouraged to do so through the non-profit NaNoWriMo website. The organization sends out encouraging emails, hosts lock in writing events and has a networking system to track information and promote companionship and goals.
Six years ago, I was part of a small writers group that was formed in the bookstore that the members had all worked at. We were official. We had a name. It was called The Bleeding Pens. We could write critique and edit. It was wonderful. My friend who writes for the Haveyoureadit blog introduced The Bleeding Pens to NaNoWriMo. I have no idea where she had heard about it from, but that is okay. We were The Bleeding Pens, we could do anything. We took up the challenge. Four intrepid young writers with nothing to lose discovered that 50,000 is not as easy as it sounds. With lots of encouraging, crying, drinking, and animated discussions, three out of four in our group finished.
Like all good things, they have to come to an end. The Bleeding Pens was not meant to last forever, but I learned a lot from them. Some of them I even still keep in touch with. From that time period of my life I discovered a lot about myself. I discovered that I love to challenge myself and I love every November with the anticipation of not Christmas or Thanksgiving, but the challenge of challenging myself. Doing something that feels impossible. Every year brings more challenges when it comes to novel writing time. Some of those challenges have been medical; some of those challenges have personal. I can honestly say that I have written four horrible novels that my never see the light of day much less a publishers desk, but I am good with that. I am a better person for that. I have learned important things about myself each and every time I take up this challenge. I strongly recommend for everyone to challenge themselves and to grow, either through taking up the challenge of NaNo this year, or any other challenge.
Lots of people put in a lot of hours to make NaNo possible and probably for very little thanks. They track down authors and beg and plead with them to write an encouraging letter to the participants of NaNo, while trying to keep the website running with hundreds of thousands of people using it, and probably a million other things that I am not even aware of. I have kept every single email of encouragement from every author that has taken the time to assist with this organization. It may mean a lot to the author or very little, I don’t know, but I know exactly how much their words have meant to me. When I have a bad day and I don’t know if I am going to make it through even the next ten minutes, sometimes I pull out one of those emails, or even a couple of emails and read the words of encouragement and it helps. It doesn’t make the bad day go away, but it does remind me of the personal challenges that I have succeeded in.
Go forth and challenge yourself and grow. Thank you NaNoWriMo for helping me challenge myself and find new directions to grow. Thank you authors that have taken the time to encourage me to grow,even if you didn’t know it was me.
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