My NaNoWriMo

      On a sudden inspiration, I decided to do National Novel Writing Month this year. To participate, you set out to complete a novel of 50,000 words in 30 days. That makes for a fairly short novel, but a good chunk of work for just about any month. It comes to 1,667 words a day, or about 7 double-spaced, type-written pages.

     I heard about the challenge years ago, and have met a couple of people who tried it. But I'd never considered attempting it myself. Not with work, a fairly eventful personal life, and on-going writing projects that I struggled to make time for. I realized a while back that I was never going to be that writer who gets the job done while holding down a job. It's not that I wouldn't like to be. Just isn't in my character or my skill set.

     Looking back over my writing history, the few times I accomplished forward progress were all periods when I was either un-employed or under-employed. I accepted some time ago that multi-tasking is not my thing. A good writing day for me is anything but efficient. I get it done in chunks ranging from one to three hours long, with equally long chunks of mostly unstructured time between them, during which I might be reading, or walking, or running around doing chores, or not doing chores, or doing crosswords, or catching up on news, or sending emails, or out on my bike, or walking, or visiting with a friend. On just sitting somewhere thinking about things. That's a process that works for me really well.

     I discovered during my first forays into writing that it's these varied periods of not writing that generate ideas and insights. It's when I stumble into solutions to writing problems. I can then return to my typewriter or computer ready for another hour or two or three, after which I'm spent again and unable to continue. The same sorts of ideas and insights have always come to me while working, and I've jotted down a thousand of them over the decades, and have gotten a start developing dozens. But I've brought very, very few of them to any kind of completion. In fact, the main reason I started this blog was to take on short subjects that I could complete and offer up to readers in a day or two. And it's been wonderful for that.

     But I was never going to develop into any kind of writer with this process. Which brings me to now, to retirement. It's been more wonderful than I can express. For the first time, I'm able to structure my days in a way that facilitates my writing, and not feel that it causes issues in other areas of my life. For the first time, I'm able to live as the writer I want to be, for more than just a month or a few weeks. And I'm loving it. Which brings me to NaNoWriMo.

     Having arrived at this point of freedom, I was still stuck in a slow and ineffective writing pattern. Every substantial piece I've written has been completed over a period of weeks or months. My cynical and over-critical inner editor has become more and more of a tyrant over the years. I have a novel - one I actually think is pretty good - that I've been dusting off and pulling out to work on since 1996! That's so long ago that what was originally intended as a totally contemporary work has become a period piece. I have so many pieces and versions of it on my various computers that; they're like pieces of a fossilized missing link that I'm struggling to piece together. I don't know if I'll ever do anything with it. But what I know is that I must get past the glacially slow production method that produced it.

     So when I came upon a mention of NaNoWriMo in a recent edition of Poets & Writers, it struck me as the perfect thing. I would force my obnoxious inner editor into a month long hiatus, if not outright retirement, and simply write, write, write for a month. And hopefully, by the 30th, I'd have established some flow, some rhythm, and a habit of cranking out several pages every day, regardless of quality. And 12 days and 21,000 words in, I feel that I'm accomplishing just that.

     The non-profit behind NaNoWriMo maintains a website that's full of acknowledgment and encouragement for participants, including chat rooms, and schedules for the meet-ups happening all around the world, for writing together and a bit of socializing. There are veterans there to advise and encourage newbies like myself, and a word counting feature for us to track our progress. I was initially concerned that I was approaching the month with nothing more than an idea that came to me about a year ago, that I'd done nothing at all to outline it. But I've never been a planner anyway, but rather one of those writers who figures it out as I go.

     One of the pleasures of these 12 days had been watching this seed of an idea grow and branch out, session by session, as characters take shape and do things that introduce new elements and considerations. Yes, there's the increasing challenge of holding it all together, and this generates some tension, but only so much as it also generates possibilities.

     I expect that I'll post again as the 30th approaches, and report on how it's gone. I gave myself full permission to write badly, but so far, I kinda like what's taking shape. Another invitation/gift to myself was to try something different. I During my twenties and thirties I read lots of great, classic science fiction, but never gave a serious thought to writing it. But the idea that came to me a year ago, and that I decided to run with, is just that: a sci-fi romp in the tradition of the old masters: Asimov, LeGuin, Delany, Sturgeon, Arthur C. Clarke!...and I'm feeling their influence as I freestyle to my heart's content.

     Thank You NaNoWriMo, for your crazy inspiration!