Happy Halloween, friends! May you all have a safe, but satisfyingly spooky, Samhain.
Today’s post will be a relatively short one, and for one simple reason: I need to rest my writing muscles in preparation for tomorrow.
You know, November 1st— Day 1 of National Novel Writing Month. It’s that special time of year when certain members of the writer community lose what’s left of their clearly deranged minds in an attempt to write 50,000 word novels in just 30 days. It’s a mad, mad, mad challenge. And for the first time in possibly a decade, I will count myself as one of the crazies just mad enough to accept it.
I will be participating in NaNoWriMo 2018 using a brand-new project with the working title The Cat Lady. And yes, I expect this title to change dramatically if it turns out to be a long-term project (and not just a 30-day writing exercise to be stuffed in a drawer and never spoken of again). But for now, The Cat Lady will do.
I attempted NaNoWriMo twice in the past, both times in high school. The first year, I failed miserably. The second year, I won—and though I ultimately threw the novel that came out of it straight out the window, I was proud that I’d gotten so much done in spite of schoolwork and midterms and whatever other distractions teenage me was plagued by at the time. I haven’t attempted it since, but I’ve been inspired this year by the energy and motivation of close friends and internet celebrities alike.
First, for this year’s NaNoRenO (the visual novel equivalent of NaNoWriMo), my good friend Odd Lazdo wrote, coded, and illustrated a wonderfully cheeky otome game demo in just under a month. That demo, titled Saucy Suitors, has since expanded into a massive full-length project which she is currently developing—and which I have the pleasure of editing.
Meanwhile, YouTube star Chris Broad, whose hilarious channel Abroad in Japan has helped keep me going on many a bad day this year, has just embarked on an insane two-month cycling trip for a special daily vlogging project called Journey Across Japan. It’s completely bonkers and, so far, I’m quite enjoying being one of his million-plus subscribers along for the ride.
It’s easy to look at others’ accomplishments and think, I don’t know how they do it. Or worse, I can’t do that. It’s easier still to get bogged down by everyday responsibilities and all those natural, nagging fears so many of us carry about failure and rejection. It’s entirely possible that I’ll fail—again—and fall short of my target word count, or win but hate every word of what I’ve written. I have no doubt that I’ll face certain obstacles, like migraines or a sense of existential dread when, halfway through the month, I look at my word count and realize how far away 50,000 words still is.
But NaNoWriMo is a unique challenge in that it isn’t really about winning or losing. It’s about trying. It’s about giving it your best shot and realizing just how much you can do—because even if you only write 40,000 words, or 20,000, or even just one sentence, that’s at least one sentence that you might never have written otherwise. And you never know where those words might lead you next.
(Did I say this was going to be a short post? Hmm. I guess it’s all relative.)
Tonight, I’ll be lounging about in some haphazard Halloween costume (because after all, the big party was on Saturday, and by Wednesday I’m already half-dead), watching holiday-appropriate movies and sharing candy on the couch with my beloved. Tomorrow, I’ll be writing like I’m running out of time. Expect a midway update on the 15th, if my fingers haven’t fallen off by then.
Wish me luck. See ya on the other side. 🙂
