NaNoWriMo 2017

November brings with it the blend of inspiration and anxiety known as NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. Two years ago I dipped my toe in the water. I di a week's worth of prep. By the time November started I was already worn out.  *note - the deadline and challenge are only overwhelming if you approach them as being overwhelming. On the shelf rests an impeccable outline but only 6,000 words. 

The following year I had prepared for months. Another sensible outline. Unfortunately the day job interfered with momentum. Nearly 30,000 words all told. But it was not successful.

Immediately following the second failure I discovered StoryGrid. Rather than write anything, I decided I needed to stop and simply listen. Analyze. Understand. This propelled me into reading and rereading intensely.

Equipped with new knowledge, every half-baked story in my journals had new life breathed into it. But that introduced a whole new dilemma. What should I focus on? Once you get the hankering on a story, you want to pour your energy into it. All of it. This is like being a kid in a candy shop with only one dollar.

The answer, for me, was to accept this onslaught of creative ideas. Rather than settle into becoming a bondservant to it, choosing to observe it. Document what could be documented. Relax. Mindfulness is the most powerful tool in the arsenal of the writer.

This inner peace to simply chip away in daytight compartments has proven to be the very thing that has emancipated me from "writers block."

This year, I weighed the options between tackling one of the previous ideas or starting on one of the new ones. At the 11th hour, I changed my mind for the final time: it would not be the fantasy myth story for NaNoWrimo, it would be the reinvention of an old low budget screenplay.  Why? Because in the spring I had promised myself I would endeavour to reinvent the screenplay into a Novella as an exercise in the craft of writing. I had managed to spend April much like a NaNoWrimo prep month. I was fully prepared to begin writing it during the month of May. But once again, life events percolated to stall any momentum. It was easier to let it stall because I was not hitched to any pressures of NaNoWriMo. 

By the time the summer had rolled around, I'd lost all focus on anything fiction and instead resurrected my daily writing through journaling and devotional writing. This was a major blessing because it opened up both my heart and mind.

Now, having digested all these lessons and having shaken off the rust of inertia, I am tackling NaNoWriMo without a rigid demand on word count. I have a personal goal of 1,000 words a day regardless of where they land: the blog, the devotional or the novel. 

My Novella may only come in around 30,000 words. But even so, if the story is completed I will claim victory as I am improving my daily output all around.