I first heard about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) back in 2002. I thought it was a cool idea to try to write a novel in a month. But since I was in a critical relationship month with Marathon Girl, I told myself I’d do it next year. The next year came and I was in the middle of slogging through the first draft of my memoir. It wasn’t a project I could rush so I pushed it off another year. Every November after it seemed like I was working another writing project that couldn’t be rushed, in the middle of edits with a publisher, or had just finished a novel and was too burned out to start a new project.
This year, however, the wrings stars have aligned. The final manuscript of The Third has been sent to the publisher, the second round of the Dating a Widower guide is just about done, and I have an outline for a novel that I wrote over the summer that’s screaming to be started. In short not only am I ready to write the first draft of a novel in a month, I’m positive I can do it.
The goal, at least for me, isn’t to write a publishable manuscript in 30 days. If I didn’t have a fulltime job, a family, and other responsibilities, I could probably come close to cranking out a publishable manuscript in 30 days. My NaNoWriMo goal is to simply write an approximate 80,000 word first draft. If I could do that, I could probably have an editable manuscript by the end of the year.
For those who want to track my NaNoWriMo progress, I’ll add a widget to my home page and the side bar of this blog November 1. (I’d add them now but NaNoWriMo isn’t going to make any of their widgets available until November 1.)
Finally, if any readers or writing friends are giving NaNoWriMo a shot, leave a comment or email me your handle and I’ll add you to my NaNoWriMo buddy list. If you want to add me, my NaNoWriMo handle is abelkeogh.
Looking forward to a month of intensive writing.