I’m showing my age again, as I remember that old Robin Williams show, the one that got him noticed, Mork & Mindy. This is not about that show, however. I’m sure you’re devastated.

If you’ve been in the writing world for a while, or even if you haven’t, you may have heard of this little thing called National Novel Writers Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. It’s a yearly event, occurring every November, where you are challenged to write a novel. 50,000 words in 30 days. There are no big prizes to win or anything like that. It’s simply a brilliant way to get yourself to finally get that book out that you’ve been talking about to your friends and family for years. Get it down on paper, if you will.

I’m participating this year, as I did last year. I’m just about 5,000 words in after two days. I’ll likely add another 2,000 tonight, before I go to bed. It’s a significant challenge, to say the least. 50,000 words is a lot of writing. It works out to about 1,650 words a day. That’s the equivalent of writing a six to eight page term paper. Every night. For thirty days.

I took the challenge last year and won. I did my 50,000 words, and, to be honest, it wasn’t as difficult as I had feared it would be. I did procrastinate, but I still managed to get at least some writing done nearly every night. As it turns out, I can type around 2,000 words in about an hour to an hour-and-a-half.

I didn’t seem to suffer from writer’s block, but then I took a great deal of the ample advice on the NaNoWriMo website to heart. Whenever I felt I wasn’t able to continue what I was writing, I simply stopped there and started a different part of the story. I would do character sketches, scenery descriptions, back stories, until I felt the story line start tugging at me again. Then I’d plunge back in.

It’s a very rewarding thing to do. I still have much to write on my first novel from last year. It’s far from done. I have started a new one for this year’s NaNoWriMo, and it’s a more compelling story for me. I will finish this one first. It’s definitely going to be at least a trilogy. The story is good, the characters are turning out to be very interesting and the world I’ve created is amazing.

As soon as I figure out how to, I’m going to put a bug somewhere on this page to show my progress.

And if you’ve been thinking about that idea for a novel you’ve had bouncing around inside your head, maybe now is the time to finally get it out on paper. You never know what may happen after that.

As they say at the NaNoWriMo website – “The world needs your novel!”

http://www.nanowrimo.org

It’s not too late to start for this year! Go for it!