I have called myself a writer for almost twenty years, yet somehow the madness of NaNoWriMo managed to elude me until this fateful November, 2015. Over the summer and even more in October, I started seeing posts about something with a weird nickname that was making people crazy on an international level.
“NaNoWriMo?” I thought to myself. “What’s that? It sounds fun. Maybe I’ll get involved.”
But one does not “go gentle into that good night.” As anyone who happens upon NaNoWriMo knows, hopping on board starts with a massive commitment to write 50,000 words in one month. But what is life if not a challenge? So I signed up for an account over the summer and waited as veteran WriMo’s filled my head with what to expect. On November 1st I leapt into an experience for which no one could have fully prepared me.
Here are five things I had to learn for myself as I stared NaNoWriMo in the face.
1) I still had time for the world beyond writing.
During October, I set time aside to prepare brainstorming, fill my pantry with minute rice and Ramen noodles, and say goodbye to my husband. I told myself that for one month, I could survive on one necessity: writing. But I would never have expected that when I sat down and pumped out words, I would still somehow find time to spare. I learned to write during breakfast, on my lunch break, and in the car while waiting for my husband to get out of class. NaNoWriMo does not mean COMPLETE death to the outside world. Prioritize and purge, and annihilate procrastination. You’ll get done what you want to get done.
2) Threats work
Toward the end of NaNoWriMo, I was stuck in some part of the “muddle in the middle” of my story, and frustrated beyond words. Literally. That’s when a writing peer told me I really needed to try Write Or Die. This program forces you to keep writing because if you stop, the screen turns red, loud noises shatter your eardrums, and monsters jump out and eat your face. Okay, maybe not your face. But the program does use visual and auditory stimuli to keep you on your toes, and if you’re brave, you can set it to start erasing what you have typed when you hesitate too long! Pushing ourselves is good, even when the resulting words are hardly a stroke of genius.
3) Just because it’s not a stroke of genius, doesn’t mean it won’t lead to one
I am now drowning in hundreds of words that sprang from the marriage of writer’s block and rushed desperation. But there were moments when I felt my muse rise from the ashes of the cremated remains of pages past. Writing does not always have to be good. It just has to be productive.
4) Writer’s block has no sense of time
It came when I opened my blank document, it settled in when I hit day fifteen, and it stuck around to the very last day. Even when I had ideas for seven different parts of the plot, I still had nothing to say when I put my hands to the keyboard. It happens when we least expect it, and it doesn’t care how much sleep we’ve had. It happens. We have to remember that it does not mean failure. But…
5) Mind really is over matter
When I told myself I had no creative juices left, my tank was empty. When I told myself to take the lemons I had and squeeze my own juice, I hit my word count every time. It was mind over matter that helped me reach 50,031 words on November 30th!
To all my fellow NaNo Newbies, we did it! Even if it was more draining and messier than we expected. With editing time coming, and a healthy dose of humility on the horizon, it’s time to take a step back from the work we’ve done and recognize it for what it is. Epic. Whether we wrote 100 words or 100,000, we put our pens to the paper and created potential. It has been beautiful to overcome self-doubt and discover what it feels like to push past what we thought we could accomplish. Same time and place next year?
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Kayla MacNeille is a YA fiction and fantasy writer out of Hershey, Pennsylvania. She is fueled by teaching, staying active, being adventurous in the kitchen, and working on her current fantasy novel–especially when writing is coupled with a nice cup of hot chocolate and some snow. Follow her on Twitter , Instagram , and on her blog.
