Wednesday, October 23, 2013

NaNoWriMo!

Note: This is a sponsored blog post! I used Grammarly's website as a means of proofreading this blog post because I feel more at home abusing the rules of grammar and punctuation after spending a great deal of time on Twitter.

November is host to an amazing writing project called NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month.  It seems like such fun to take part in and I've always wanted to do it.  It's something a very large community of people does every year. I especially love the amount of support and cheer leading that goes on as participants band together to help each other to complete a 50,000 word novel in 30 days.



When I was in middle school and into the first years of high school, I was always writing stories. These stories were usually filled with lots of angst and drama and romance. Most were heavily influenced by other stories that I'd read that had left an emotional impact.  Then two things happened in a relatively short period of time. The first is that someone close to me read my stories without my permission. This impacted my writing for pleasure in two ways. The first is that this person was very judgemental of something that I did purely for fun. The other is that this person wanted to continue reading my stories even though I had never allowed it in the first place. I became very self-conscious about what I wrote and how this person would react to what I was writing. The second thing that happened is that the floppy disk that I had stored my stories on was left in a trouser pocket and went through the washing machine.  I had nearly 20 stories on that disk that was instantly lost. I'm sure many writers out there can imagine the utter hopelessness and loss that I felt.  It felt like recapturing my inspiration for those stories was too large of a mountain to climb. So with both of those instances occurring, I stopped writing altogether.

I occasionally (usually only half-heartedly) mention getting back into writing. Sometimes a character will pop into my head. Sometimes I want to capture a feeling with words.  Sometimes I feel the urge to let out my creative side now and again and might jot down some ideas.  If other bloggers, authors, or publicists ever ask if I'm a blogger as well as an aspiring writer, I usually just say no.  I say that I don't have the time. That I let other people with the ideas, and the creativity do their thing, and that leaves me to do mine.  But really, I think that I'm just lacking in confidence when it comes to writing.  But I get this silly, happy grin on my face  when I really think about what it would be like to sit down every day and to write. I love that daydream.

I might take part in NaNoWriMo this year. But if I do it will be done in secret. If I do, it just means I'm not yet ready to tell other people about it. Not yet anyway. If I do NaNo, it'll be for me. It will be to reclaim something that I lost when I was younger.

Good luck to everybody taking part this year!

12 comments:

  1. I know that feeling - little ideas start niggling away, I normally try and write something - then give up after a paragraph - oops!

    NaNo is great for getting words down - if you do go for it this year - good luck! :)

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    1. Thank you! I think I won't put any pressure on myself and see how things go :)

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  2. I'm debating a secret NaNoWriMo experience myself! Ha.. too funny.

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  3. I would love to do NaNoWriMo one day. Maybe next yeat ;D xx

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  4. I'm really sorry to hear that someone spoiled your pleasure in writing. I think you should always write for yourself first and foremost, and let the audience come second.

    If you do decide to take part in NaNoWriMo - good luck :)

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  5. If you do decide to take part - good luck! I've been debating doing it for several years now but I flinch at taking on such a commitment...

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    1. I don't like starting things that I know I might not finish, so this is a bit hard for me... we'll see how it goes.

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