I signed up for NaNoWriMo, which runs for the whole month of November. NaNoWriMo challenges real and wannabe novelists alike to write 50,000 words in one month.
Five.
Thousand.
Words.
What have I gotten myself into? Do I not have enough on my plate with work and school and blogging and projects and reality television and sleep? I guess not.
For the past year or so, I've had a specific novel idea in my head. I haven't worked too hard on it because I don't have a lot of focus when it comes to novel writing. First of all, I've never done it. I've written outlines and I love writing about my characters. But I've never taken the final step to begin writing. It's such a big step. And I think I'm terrified of failing.
But I think NaNoWriMo will be the kick in the pants I need. I need to stop stalling and making excuses. I need to just sit down and WRITE! While I am a journalism major currently and I like the idea of working at a magazine, my number one dream is to become a novelist. And I want to be successful at it. But life has gotten so busy for me that I've put all writing by the wayside. I'm not even developing outlines for stories I'll never write right now! And that, my dear blog readers, is crazy talk.
So while I'm nervous and scared about NaNoWriMo, I'm also very, very excited. It boils down to writing 1,700 words a day. It's not about writing anything publishable. It's going to be very raw and very rough. It's just about writing. And I need to just start writing.
Anyone else trying out NaNoWriMo? Has anyone tried it before? Thoughts?
