Monday's Muse NaNoWriMo

I haven't done a Muse post in awhile, so it seems fitting to talk about National Novel Writing Month on this blog since October's posts are all going to be preparation for my nanowrimo novel (minus a few blogfests).

National Novel Writing Month is a crazy November of trying to write 50,000 words on a newly started novel (if following the rules) during family events, school work, regular work, and everything else that goes on. It is a great practice and first draft creating exercise that encourages writing every single day. Since the goal is to write 50k in that one month, the daily goal is around 1667 words. Sure, 50k is a little short for a regular novel, though is okay for some YA lengths, but it's at least a good start. Some people even manage to get more than that amount done in the single month. I've seen people reach the goal after the first week, which seems very insane and some of those, along with others, get near or past 100,000 words in November. One thing to note is that NaNoWriMo is based on the honors system. It takes verification for the site to qualify it as a win, posting in the words to a program that scrambles them then counts. Winning means getting a certificate that you can print out. It's more of a status but one that is fun. I love the event because it's taking the sometime solitary act of writing a novel and makes it a group activity. It's fun and definitely crazy.

My Past NaNoWriMo Experiences:
I have attempted the event 3 different times.  2006 - 2007 - 2008

2006 was the first year when I tried writing the president's son novel, Finding a Way Out, which I only managed a few thousand words. It was my first attempt at writing a novel in general instead of just scenes and short stories. Haven't finished the book or written in it much really but I still like the idea. The agent character is fun and as long as the son doesn't ruin the plot, it could be interesting.

2007 was another failed attempt when I tried to write the YA novel, Ephram's Defiance, with a goal of 20,000 instead of the full 50. I managed to get 14,000 done that month and it was better than the year before. It was the longest piece of writing I had at that point. Didn't finish the first draft until 2009 and I'm now working on the novel rewrite.

2008 was the best year. I won while writing an erotica/romance novel, Hellenic Distractions. Got a few hundred words over 50k and later in December I finished the last few chapters. Had someone read the whole novel too, that I didn't even know, cause I had it up on writing.com and they were anxious for those last few chapters, which is encouraging. Haven't done a rewrite yet but I plan to in the future. The genre isn't my top priority at the moment but it's still fun to write.

2009, I planned to take part but with personal issues going on I ended up not writing for it. Made me a little sad because I had plans to try writing two different novels and started my own group on writing.com.


NaNoWriMo 2010:
This year, I plan to work on an Epic Fantasy novel. This is a story idea that I've wanted to write since high school. It actually started out as a historical fiction slash rpg sci-fi type of novel and eventually became a regular epic fantasy story. The idea has cemented and been the same for the past 5 years but I didn't want to write it yet because I wasn't sure if I could write epic/high fantasy very well. But I'm ready to give the first draft a shot and write it. While 50k is only half the expected length, it will be a good start.


Blog Schedule
October = NaNoWriMo prep
November = NaNoWriMo