NaNo! NaNo! Mojo! Go! Go!



Na-nu. Na-nu.

Do you NaNo? Are you a WriMo? If you think I'm speaking Orkan like Mork, then you need to check out the official site for National Novel Writing Month--NaNoWriMo and get yourself up to speed.

Though I'm no poster child for NaNoWriMo--the month long national novel writing endeavor that takes place every November--I have participated two of the last five years, writing 43,000 new words during two campaigns combined. Writing less than 50,000 words each time isn't enough to be called a winner. But I certainly felt like a winner after creating two strong starts to two very different books--one a YA and the other a cozy mystery.

In terms of NaNo poster children in my acquaintanceship, that honor goes to Ian T. Healy who has participated six years in a row and succeeded in hitting his 50,000 word count each of those years. Yes, Ian is a marvel. You can read his official NaNoWriMo post here.

Now that I'm no longer in graduate school, I plan to participate this November though I'm not going to be starting a new book. I'll use the NaNo mojo to help me complete at least one of the (four) books I have started.

I admire writers like Ian who can grind it out, year after year. If you're hitting the 1,667 words necessary per day to reach 50,000 words total, you'll feel as though you've been put through the meat grinder. But honestly, I'll be ecstatic if I can churn out 30,000-35,000 new words on an existing project. If you're doing NaNo and want to do a word-count challenge with yours truly, just hollah.