With November in full swing, so too is National Novel Writer’s Month (NaNoWriMo).
If you are unfamiliar with NaNoWriMo, it is an annual challenge to write a 50,000-word novelette in 30 days. To help with this process there is a whole website where you can track your progress and receive badges and encouragement for the work you are putting in.
Beyond that, there are writing groups that meet in person, on Facebook, and other places online to support those participating.
Some authors have gotten their professional stat via NaNoWriMo. The encouragement to write, and write a lot, during these 30 days can be a great kick-in-the-ass if you need such.
I have participated in NaNoWriMo 6 or 7 times over the years. I have successfully completed projects 4 times (two of which – The Journey of a Thousand Miles Begins With a Trip to the Post Office and Vortex Pilgrimage – I have self-published on Amazon).
On more than one occasion I used NaNoWriMo to write in a different genre than my usual or to write from a different perspective. This has proven to be a very cool way to expand my capabilities as a writer and to try some new and different things.
This year I am using NaNoWriMo for two different purposes. First, to track just how much I am putting out in a month with these blog articles, plus my work on my fiction.
But more than that, second, I am using NaNoWriMo to encourage myself to ramp up production and do more writing work.
The work is ongoing
I believe that by tracking all the writing I do this month I will see just how much work I do.
One of the problems I encounter is that some people in my life do not entirely believe in what I am doing here. Now that I have been writing full-time since April, I have produced a LOT of work. This has been very exciting, and living the life I have long desired to live has been really empowering.
Unfortunately, empowering and exciting as it’s been, it hasn’t paid me a whole lot. Yes, I have been making some money with my work, but I am not yet earning a living wage. But I am striving to change that.
Writing is never a chore for me. To be sure, there are days it is easier and days where it is tougher, but it always is a joy and a pleasure. I love putting words out there in the world, no matter what genre that may be.
NaNoWriMo has encouraged me in the past to put in more effort and try new things. This year I am putting it to a much more utilitarian task, but the ongoing work I do is important, and having a gage for a month of what it truly entails may prove further enlightening.
How? First, I will have a metric to show any naysayers. But second, and much more importantly, I will have a metric for myself.
Self-awareness is a part of the process
When I write about mindfulness, awareness, and conscious reality creation it is at its base for me. Why? Because while I believe in these ideas and tenets of the universe, I am not a perfect practitioner. I know all the fundamentals and how to get from here to there. But that doesn’t mean that I am always as mindful, aware, nor conscious of creations as I desire to be.
Some of that is because I, like everyone else, get focused on outside stimuli. I get caught up in what is going on in the world at large…and given some of the surreal insanity of what that entails it makes me feel bad. That, in turn, impacts both my productivity and my entire thought process.
Recognizing my own struggles with this, I often write from a place of the current personal matters in my head. Since there is nobody else in here but me, it helps to get this out there into the world.
I know that I am not alone in this. Sharing with you helps me, and I hope helps you, too.
NaNoWriMo offers me an opportunity to track the work I do over the next 30 days to prove to myself that I am doing the work. This gives me added encouragement to write more.
Yet I need to admit that there is one small problem with NaNoWriMo overall.
Quality versus quantity
Banging out 50,000 words in the course of 30 days is crazy. Except that it’s not.
When it comes to creating an entire novel in one sitting, so to speak, that can be a bit much. Yet that doesn’t mean that quality needs to be sacrificed for quantity.
How? Well look at that, mindfulness comes into play.
I have self-published two of the works that I created over 30 days of a past NaNoWriMo. Yet I haven’t just thrown them out there without editing. They were, to my mind, good stories that needed to be shared. So I cleaned them up and put them out into the world.
Another of the 4 completed NaNoWriMo projects in my catalog I’ve considered sharing. I started to edit and expand the story years ago, and stopped after the flash-drive I was saving to failed and I lost half the work I did.
Lesson learned, btw – back-ups are important.
The work I have been doing over the past 8 months has been getting, I believe, steadily better. Quantity, in this case, has helped lead to higher quality. This occurs because I am constantly learning and putting in the work to be a better story-teller, idea-sharer, and overall writer.
Ramping up production can serve in many ways. When you love the craft and the work you do it’s the difference between a good day at work and a great day at work.
Thank you
Thank you for reading these words I have written for me and for you, as well as for taking part in my ongoing journey. Thank you for joining me, and for inspiring me and my arts.
Please take a moment to explore the rest of the website, which I am working to evolve and change for the better…much like I am doing for myself. Also, visit Awareness for Everyone to check out my bi-weekly podcasts.
This is the thirty-fourth entry of my personal writing blog. Please take a moment to check out the collection of my published writing, which can be found here.
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