This year I participated in National Novel Writing Month otherwise known as NaNoWriMo, and I won. For the first time, I succeeded at writing 50,000 words of a novel in one Month. Yes, it is as crazy as it sounds, and there were moments that I didn’t think I would have any ideas, and even some moments where I thought I wouldn’t catch up, but I did.
Doing NaNoWriMo, though, taught me, or at least reminded me, of some things that I thought I’d share with you.
- I waste a lot of time– Not only did I write 50,000 words in November, but I also kept up with my blog, kept my 40+ hour job going, had thanksgiving with my family, went out with friends, and read five books, and kept up with the two shows I care about at the moment, Doctor Who and Selfie. I also worked on photos, Christmas presents, and other general household chores. The one thing that didn’t really happen is laundry. But basically what I learned is that somehow all the time I used to accomplish all those things seems to disappear in any other month, and in a way where I have nothing to show for it.
- If it’s really important to me, I’ll make time for it– I carved out time everywhere to make my novel writing happen. I brain stormed in the car and shower and as I drifted off to sleep. I wrote as soon as I was awake and as soon as I got home and sometimes used my lunch hour as well. I made time for it, because it was important to me to finish.
- I am competitive– It wasn’t even a competition where one person won, but because you could say “I won NaNoWriMo” at the end of the month, I stuck with it. I wanted to win, and so I did.
- When you tell others about something, it will make you accountable– The only other time I’ve officially done NaNoWriMo was in 2009 and I didn’t win. The biggest difference I think was that I told people this time around what I was doing. I talked about it with friends and family and that fueled me to finish. I didn’t want to be the person that had to tell people I didn’t make my deadline.
- Doing more than expected makes things easier- It’s easy to say “I did what I had to” for the day, but when I only wrote the amount of words I had to write, the next morning I woke up under the wire and a little fearful that I would hit writer’s block that day. It was when I went over and above the minimum word count that I felt freedom to be creative and not chained to a word count. It felt good the next day that I was writing to write. Granted I was chasing after my word count full steam the last week (one day I had to write 5,000 words just to have the chance of catching up), but at the beginning, when I stayed ahead of the game, that’s when it was easiest.
These were the lessons I was reminded of during my writing stint. I’m hoping to keep these in mind as I go into the new year with goals and expectations for what I want to accomplish in 2015.
