Every November for the past 15 years, various aspirants to Literary Lionship have girded on their writing tools and thrown away their few remaining brain cells on what is known as NaNoWriMo – the Nation Novel Writing Month. The objective of this event is to see if the would-be writer can create a first draft of a 50,000 word novel within 30 days. What follows is the expurgated diary of one of these self-imposed masochists.
11/1/15 – Ok, here goes nothing, as the man said. Got an idea, got a word-processor and the nice people at http://nanowrimo.org/ promise that if I’ll just scribble down 1,666 words of this thing every day, I’ll have a sure-nuff 50K word first draft by the end of the month. At least Darling Spouse is in my corner. What would I do without him?
11/4/15 There are thousands of writers using this site and everyone else seems bustin’ loose and making literary history. I’ve got a first chapter done – I don’t like it, it stinks, but at least it’s done. I sure am glad six or seven of these people want to be my writing buddies – misery loves company and maybe they can help me figure out a better beginning since all of them seem to be terrific scribblers. Still I think my “buddy” BigWriteGuy probably started before November 1 – nobody kicks out 12K words on their first day! Anyway, I don’t need to focus on anyone else’s attempts to cheat. What I need is to find a better opening to this cockamamie story!
11/13/15 Day 13 and I’m already 2,700 words behind where I ought to be. Acck! This is Not My Fault! First off, a virus killed my link with the internet which meant I lost contact with my writing buddies, my dictionary, my thesaurus and my word count validator. I got the computer to regain the ‘net by reinstalling the Operating System but the repair ate my word-processing program! Are they sure Marcel Proust started out this way? On the good side, my imagination gave me a character named Jeremy and that guy is funny! No wonder writers like what they do.
11/16/15 Well, I’m a day behind schedule but I’m at the half-way point both in words and plot. You know, I used to laugh at writers on the chat shows who talked about characters that appeared and then took over the story. They weren’t kidding! I’ve got to get that louse, Jeremy out of the story quick – he grabs all the good lines but he’s not advancing the plot! I’ve tried asking my writing buddies but none of them respond to my emails. I thought we were going to help each other through this experience! Well, I need some help getting that little scene-stealer out of my story!
11/20/15 – 6 Thousand words behind schedule and why did I ever agree to do this? Other people are experiencing the gold-bitten, thrill of November (ok, not my favorite month but right now Purgatory looks like a vacation in the Bahamas compared to this!) I know why they call this part of the book a pinch point – this is when the reader sees how impossible the hero’s quest is. Well, I know what happens here at the 67%/ Pinch Point mark and I know what will happen at the 75% point (the plot rounds third base and kicks for home) but damned if I know what happens between them! That’s roughly four thousand words of story I need to figure out now and I haven’t got a clue! Tell the truth, I’m not sure I even like these characters anymore.
11/25/15 Oh somewhere folks are happy, traveling to a T-day feast
In some spot, Balloons are filling for a 3 mile parade (at least)
Somewhere families gather to laugh, love, eat and cook
But the only Turkey in this house is this lousy, stinking book!
11/28/15 So this is what the last mile up Everest looks like. No silly wannabes on the forums at this stage. Nobody’s talking. Nobody’s brainstorming. There’s a fair amount of weeping and wailing in some spots, but that’s got to be expected. And me, I’m trying to make it up one more step, write one more paragraph, fill in one more hole in this farchadat story. If I ever say I want to do this again, I want someone to hit me over the head, tie the collected works of Dickens around my neck and throw me in the River! Now I know why so many writers are warped, drunken, no-good, goof-balls! They write!
11/29/15 …And the rest is silence.
12/2/15 – Darling Spouse asked today when I was going to start the revisions. Maybe my next book should be about murder.
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