NaNoWriMo

November is National Novel Writing Month, as decided by the good people at the NaNoWriMo offices. I first heard about the contest, which encourages participants to write a 50,00 word novel in 30 days, a couple of years ago. The younger sister of a friend had participated a couple of times, and she told me about her adventures in insanely fast book-writing. I was immediately intrigued - I used advice from the website to help my middle school students craft short stories during my student teaching just a few weeks later, and I based my entire curriculum around the website when I taught creative writing last year. I flirted with the idea of undertaking what is probably an act of near-lunacy last November, but honestly was just too scared to do it. November is when wrestling season starts, and when my life become exponentially busier, I rationalized.

But I just signed up for an account at the website. I entered myself in this year's contest. I am committed to finishing a book.

I have never been much for New Year's resolutions. I actually can't remember ever making one before this year, but last January I declared that 2010 would be the year of novel-writing. I did about 30 pages of character sketches, background writing, outlining, and general preparation, but only wrote about 10 pages of actual story.

So November is here, my last chance to finish a book this year, and I am determined to get it done. It's time to "nut up or shut up," as the fella says.  I love to write. It's why I started this blog. I would love to get a book published and make some extra money, but my probably-quixotic quest is more about the fact that I feel like I have to actually DO something creative in my life. Finish something of my own rather than just be an appreciator or a scholar or a critic. I feel like a writer, even though I haven't really done all that much writing in my life. This is my chance to earn that feeling.

I'm sure my book is going to be pretty terrible, at least on November 30th. Hopefully I can turn it into something that someone might actually want to read, but even if no one ever does, I'm excited at the prospect of doing something.

I'm anxious and giddy and fearful and curious to see what next month brings. 50,000 words is an awful lot. Nearly 2,000 words a day. I'm sure I will be exhausted and at times discouraged, but I hope I can keep up the resolve to actually get this thing done. I think I can. I've done things in my life that seemed impossible at the time, and I have always been glad that I completed such tasks. It's been a long time since I did something really difficult, and I'm looking forward to the challenge.