Exciting & Terrifying
Today an author, friend and someone I follow on Facebook posted about participating in the upcoming NaNoWriMo. For those of you who don't know what this is you can find the official explanation here. Otherwise, it's a group of authors & writers, published & non-published who get together to write a goal of 50,000 words between November 1st & November 30th.
My college room mate has done this for a number of years and even won a few, but I thought you had to have a published book ready to go and usually am in school, have a heavy work load and a HUGE lack of confidence to write. I have several characters, stories and worlds in my head, but they've never come to life in full, at least not as of yet. I often write or jot down my thoughts when I have a chance and often end up with several bits & pieces, characters and scenes that go no where.
Well, after a HUGE amount of conversation, I've decided that since work is mostly manageable and school is currently on hold, I'm going to take the "plunge" sort of speaking and challenge myself to write the 50K in words, maybe more. If anything else, the emails and people I meet should be motivational and if I'm really lucky I will get to both start and finish a story, or at least write in order rather than in bits and pieces.
Official About (via NaNoWriMo)
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing.
On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought about writing a novel.
Thoughts
I hope to use this time to find the motivation to finish what I start and make some new friends along the way. I hope this will help me refine the methods I use to write to go from someone who has just bits & pieces in a lifetime of writing so something more concrete, and hopefully a finishes story (minus edits and the polishing process). My long-term hope is to do this each year and eventually become a published author.
I am sure my thoughts will change over time, but for now this is where I am. In the meantime I will still be blogging for MyBookFairy and sharing a variety of posts via Blogger, Facebook & social media. [These won't count towards my word count of course]. I plan to update and publish my "author blog" so that you can share this journey with me.