National Novel Writing Month 2007

As of today, November 12th, I have 25269 words down for NaNoWriMo. Not bad. Especially considering my schedule had been all out of whack this past week. I had an unexpected trip out of town and several days when I just couldn't get any writing done.

I've discovered a few reasons why joining this group is a good idea even if you write regularly all the time. There is a sense of community with other NaNo writers, and that community encompasses the whole world. There are people on line from many different countries, but we're all writers and we all want to support one another.

There's a forum for Word Wars, where you're challenged to write as much as possible for 15 minutes or 30 minutes. This has really helped me over those spots where I'm getting stuck writing. They keep me focused and make me write something and as I type the story starts flowing again. The challenge of beating other writers' high word counts keeps me from getting too wrapped up in a particular phrasing and I just keep going. Editing is for December. It's become a motto.

I'm taking a leap and going out looking for one of the local Write-Ins today. This is where local area writers get together, usually at a coffee shop or library, and write. None of these people usually know one another before NaNo, but it gives them a sense of community, and as a writer that can be a very good thing. Writing can be very isolating, but writers are really very social creatures. We like to take apart all the facets of the people around us, but if you're tucked away in a home office alone there aren't any people to analyze. Writing in public gives us a way to people watch and learn about new people, all the better to do with other writers. I'm naturally reticent, so this gives me a good a excuse to meet new people too.

Obviously my goal is to accomplish the 50,000 words by the end of the month, and then it will be to edit what I've written and get it submitted to a publisher. No one is going to publish me if I don't submit it, so that's the ultimate goal. And for anyone else who's participating, good luck and good writing!