NaNoWriMo: Why I Participate

As the month of October progresses and November nears, many people are beginning to plan for Halloween and Thanksgiving.  Costumes are purchased, family is contacted, menus are planned, treats are bought.  In my profession of pastor, October is often the time to begin planning for Thanksgiving worship and the season of Advent.  We start learning Christmas songs in Sunday School and begin asking families to lead the lighting of the Advent candles.  But for me, the tail-end of October is about planning for something else.  Something that has become a very important tradition in my life, despite how time consuming and overwhelming it can feel.  I am talking about National Novel Writing Month, known to participants as NaNoWriMo.  It is thirty crazy days of writing 50,000 words of original fiction, whether it is from a preplanned outline or simply doing what has come to be called "pantsing" (flying by the seat of your pants).  I tried this insane journey for the first time in November of 2008 and only completed about 20,000 words.  Despite my failure, I attempted the feat a second time in 2009 and did even worse, quitting with less than 10,000 words.  In 2010, I attempted the task yet again, this time trying to finish the draft I had begun in November of 2008.  I was doing really well until an extremely busy couple of weeks at work completely derailed my ability to finish.  I ended up with another 20,000 words.

My failures were disheartening, but I continued to write anyway.  Between November of 2008 and October of 2011, I completed a first draft of a fantasy fiction novel titled The Lantern of Rahela.  All in all, the manuscript contained around 75,000 words.  I could not believe I had written so much.  Yet even in my excitement over finishing something, I felt I had an unfinished task left to complete.  In November of 2011, I did not participate in NaNoWriMo.  I had just finished my novel and was too excited about editing to do more writing on something else.  But when Camp NaNoWriMo rolled around in June of 2012, I was ready and excited to work on the sequel to my completed novel.  The awesome thing about Camp NaNoWriMo (which is different from regular NaNoWriMo) is that they assign you a virtual cabin with others who are trying to write 50,000 words.  For my first Camp experience, I was assigned an awesome cabin.  We nicknamed ourselves the Pantsing Panthers and encouraged one another through a group on Facebook.  With that support in place, I actually achieved my goal.  I wrote 50,000 words in the month and felt really good.  Unfortunately, the manuscript draft was nowhere near complete.  So, when NaNoWriMo rolled around that November, I decided to take the opportunity to finish my story.  During November of 2012, I wrote another 50,000 words and completed the draft of my second novel.  It was grueling, stressful, exhausting, mentally draining, and TOTALLY AWESOME!  I was hooked.

Now, you might be wondering why on earth I would subject myself to something that I describe as grueling, stressful, exhausting and mentally draining.  And that is a valid question.  I saw just today this funny comic that depicts this inner conflict in a funny way:

So, if it is so difficult and is strictly self-imposed, why do I do it?  Why do I participate in NaNoWriMo?  There are really three reasons:

1.  I love the finished product.  Writing so much in such a short amount of time draws weird, creative ideas out of you that you might never have come up with if you were writing the story at a slower pace.  Those elements, while not always keepers, add intrigue and interest to your story.

2.  Participating in NaNoWriMo connects me to something larger than myself.  The NaNo world is diverse, with variety in terms of age, race, sex, genre, and nation.  During NaNo, I feel slightly less isolated from this gigantic world we live in.

3.  It forces me to have better priorities.  I know that if I am going to find an hour or two a day to write I am going to have to make it a priority.  That means making other things less of a priority, things that probably should be less of a priority anyway.  I feel like I get more done in less time during NaNo because I have to set boundaries on everything.  And when I do that, I feel better about myself and my life.

So, maybe you are not convinced to do NaNoWriMo for yourself after reading this, but perhaps you at least can understand my craziness.  I truly believe that everyone should try NaNo once in their lives.  You might hate it, it might drive you to the brink of insanity, but you might also find that you love it...possibly for those very reasons. :)  So, that's why I participate in National Novel Writing Month.  Go to nanowrimo.org and sign up to join me!  It will be the most stressful and amazing month of your life!