Gearing Up for NaNoWriMo 2019

Happy Halloween! Or as I like to call it, Happy NaNo Eve!

It’s October 31st, and in a just a few short hours, for many writers, the madness that is NaNoWriMo 2019 is about to begin.

NaNoWriMo, for those of you who have never heard of it before, is a writing challenge that was started in 1999. The premise is simple: to write 50,000 words of a brand new novel in 30 days. Nowadays, nanowrimo.org is more than just a website; it is a community and year-round nonprofit that supports hundreds of thousands of writers and encourages creative writing via education in classrooms worldwide. According to the NaNoWriMo website, 21 people participated in the first challenge, and by 2017, the number of writers officially taking part was 306,320.

I have been attempting the challenge since 2005 (which was longer than I thought!). In that time I have “won” the challenge…

wait for it…

…ZERO times.

Yes. Zero. Fail! Shame! Misery!

Okay. So NaNoWriMo just isn’t my thing. That’s okay. It’s honestly not for everyone. And I’ve been trying to figure out why I have been unable to successfully complete the challenge.

And I think I have the answer.

See, NaNoWriMo isn’t the only creative challenge that I’ve tried over the years. In addition to writing, I am also an artist/illustrator. As an artist, I took part in the 100 Days of Making Comics Challenge. The rules of the 100 Days Comics challenge are simple: Spend 30 minutes a day, for 100 days in a row, on your personal comic project, and document your progress via social media. It’s freaking hard and a major commitment, and I failed the first time on day 80-something. But on my second attempt of that challenge, I succeeded. Yay me!

Now, 100 days is a heck of a lot longer than the 30 days required in NaNoWriMo. So why was I able to complete the 100 Days of Making Comics Challenge and not Nano? 

It boils down to a question of TIME vs WORD COUNT.

You see, to win the 100 Days of Making Comics, your only requirement is to work for 30 minutes (at minimum) on your project, and that could be any phase of the project–from writing to thumbnailing, to pencils, or working on the lettering over your finished art. It is not the  “100 days of thumbnails” or “100 script pages” challenge. You work at your own pace, on whatever you choose, as long as your butt is in that chair for at least 30 minutes for 100 days in a row, you win.

To successfully “win” Nano and reach the 50,000 word goal at the end of November, writers should strive to hit a target word count of 1667 words per day. If you write more, great! But if you don’t hit that 1667, you risk falling behind and not being able to make those words up.  

Now if you take a look at my Nano stats on my profile page, there’s a fun little number on there that says that on average, I write 60 words per day. 

OUCH.

Actually, that number isn’t accurate. That’s based on the projects that are left up on my Nano page, both of which I failed. In actuality, on a normal day of writing, I usually can eke out 250-1200 words. And that, my friends, is far short of the 1667 needed to keep up a winning NaNoWriMo pace.

I have discovered that I write in the same manner that I create visual art. When I start a scene, I don’t always write in complete sentences. I sketch out the scene first in fragments and phrases, expository bits of writing, and notes, and dialogue; and grammar, dialogue tags and punctuation all go out the window as I try to capture what I see in my head. Then, just like when I am drawing, after I have sketched out the bare bones of my idea, I go in and continually pad and flesh out the scene with nuance and details. It is the writing equivalent of going from thumbnails, to sketches, to roughs, to finished pencils, to inks, and then finally, to colors. Layer upon layer of building up. It is messy, un-streamlined, illogical, and hard to keep track of word count, because it changes as I peck away. 

So do I try to change myself to fit Nano? Or change Nano to fit me?

This year, I have decided to do the latter, and I’ve come up with my own writing challenge, which is inspired by Nano, but is separate from it. I am going to combine the time-spent, butt-in-chair working aspect of the 100s challenge with the writing aspect of Nano. I am going to write along with my fellow NaNoWriMo aspirants, even if I can’t technically join in the challenge with them.

There are other 30-Day writing challenges out there. I’m not sure how unique this one is, but these are the rules I am setting for myself:

30/60 Writing Challenge

• Every day for 30 days spend 60 minutes working on your novel
• Post your daily progress on your blog or social media
• If you skip a day, you must begin the challenge over

And that’s it!

I will be using this blog to post my daily progress/post my accountability. I would love it if you came by and cheered me on every once in a while.

To my friends doing NaNoWriMo 2019–I am with you in spirit, even though I am not with you on the crazy ride that is the Nano Challenge. Good luck, and I hope you all win!

Happy writing!

–Karyn

 

 

 

 

 

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