Shut up and write Nanowrimo-ers!

Last April, I participated in National Novel Writing Month (aka. Mind Key's Minute Novel Challenge) for the first time, and not since grad school did I have the discipline to write and write often. I guess the competition was a big motivator too. Yes, there was a prize to be won, but more importantly, there was a group of us on a mission. We joined a chorus and passed muses to one another. Unexpectedly, I won the Minute Novel challenge with a variety of excerpts from my memoir-still-in-progress, The Golden Skillet.

My success with Nanowrimo could have only been accomplished by the energy and support provided by Mind Key members and followers. Knowing that significant snippets of my work had an audience became a driving force to continue the arduously fulfilling task of writing my book. It's still not done, and for a simple reason - every month is not Nanowrimo.

So now it's November. I'm sure there are college dorm rooms cleaner than my apartment. I bought underwear and socks at Walmart to delay having to do laundry. I'm back in grad school, working two teaching jobs, and I am on my second sinus infection of the season. Go me.

This time around, Nanowrimo is in the back of my mind despite the overload. That means there are times I can say "piss off" to normal responsibility and lose myself in my memoir and fiction writing. You may ask, "Well, if she has all this other stuff going on, how can she write 1,500 words a day?"

Here's my answer. I can't. And God bless anyone else out there who can.

As easy it is to be discouraged by my lack of consistency this time around, I am determined to feel accomplished, even if I conjure up two decent pages or one crappy paragraph. A word count of over a thousand in one day is fantastic, but for some, it's a long shot. The most important thing to do is write. To paraphrase Neil Gaiman, it's that simple, and it's also that hard. Drop what you are doing and write. Shut the blinds, hide the phone, plug-in the earphones, and write. Best of luck and a thousand blessings to all Nanowrimo-ers.

Thursday, November 12, 2015