NaNoWriMo? NaNoWhyNot!

Despite the (almost) catchy title, this is something that I have been giving serious thought to.

For a few years, when November rolled around, I would trot out the coffee mugs and Moleskines, get my spreadsheets prepped and ready (or in later iterations, a new project in Scrivener), and settle down for the haul.

I won’t slow this narrative down with the details – you can learn about NaNoWriMo here if you aren’t already aware.

After a while, though, I started questioning my participation. I didn’t think I was getting anything out of it any more. I was, after all (or so I thought), already established in my writing routines. What need did I have for a gimicky, and grueling, month of writing?

But as with so many things in life, I have since learned to recognize my hubris. My writing, and my commitment to writing, aren’t as great as I used to believe they were. I, in fact, need the kick in the pants on occasion. And no matter what else may result from NaNoWriMo (and I don’t believe it will produce a great manuscript, at least not during the month of November), I do know that it will get me back into sitting down every day and writing.

And that’s something I actually want to do. I’ve done a lot of retrospectives the last few months. It makes sense, given everything that’s been going on. When it comes to writing, one of the things I’ve noticed is that the works I look back on most fondly are the ones I just had fun with. I’ve written (and tried to write) science fiction novels and fantasy epics, because these are how I entertain myself. But time and time again, when I look back at my past projects, the one project that sticks out in my mind as being the most fun I ever spent on a keyboard was when I wrote A Scent of Roses. That book, in a lot of ways, was a homage to every trashy paperback I read as a teen, every beat up cover I shelved working at the library in High School, every movie I watched late at night when no one could interrupt. It was fun.

I want to do that again. I think I had something good going when I went at it with the mindset of writing a bad B-movie. Write like Hammer Films is going to pick it up (hey, did you know they were still around?!?). But most of all, have fun writing.

Will I make it to 50k? Maybe. It’s been a while since I’ve had the energy or discipline to sit down and write any words on a given day, let alone the minimum average of 1,666 per day necessary to write 50k words in 30 days. But, I’m going to try. I’ve already prepped my family, repeatedly reminding them that November is approaching, that I’m going to be spending a lot of it writing. Most of them just wave a hand at me, but I understand, they’re distracted with Inktober.

In what makes a brave departure for me, I’ve also started on an outline. Or, rather, a week ago I started throwing all of my thoughts down in a doc. Over the next two weeks I want to flesh those ideas out a little more, bullet point them, and then do that dastardly thing where I arrange them so they almost make sense. And this, I think, I will call an outline. Or a notion.

I always hate making announcements on this blog, namely because I feel extra guilty if I fall short of achieving them. And yet, here I go. Watch this space – November will be peppered with weekly updates on my NaNoWriMo progress. Hopefully not more than that unless my writing is going especially well, because more than that means I’m blogging more than writing fiction, and that’s not productive. And if you are participating, feel free to buddy me. After some recent updates to their site, it looks like parts of my profile have vanished (including everyone I was a buddy with previously).

For me, it’s time to get ready for work before I spend the weekend doing Dad things – and outlining my November novel.