To some, the month of November means Family, Turkey, and Grandma’s Pumpkin Pie. To another group of people – namely, writers and bloggers across the USA (and beyond) – November means WORDS. Lots and lots and lots of words.
A few years back November was proclaimed National Novel Writing Month or, “NaNoWriMo”
Sidebar: “NaNo…NaNo” – Does anyone else have flashbacks of ‘Mork & Mindy‘ right now? I just aged myself.
People who join the NaNoWriMo club sign up to write a “Novel” (50,000 words or more) between the stroke of midnight November 1 through 11:59 PM November 30th.
Thirty days.
Fifty-thousand words.
One thousand six-hundred sixty-seven words averaged per day.
Although a few amazingly talented and/or lucky souls actually have published their NaNoWriMo creations, the “novel” isn’t expected to be a coherent, publish-worthy work by the end of 30 days. It just needs to be. . . words.
I’ve heard there are more than 200,000 people committed to complete the NaNo challenge this year. Yours truly is one of them. I have always wanted to do this. And, as you know, I have a big crush on words. So, this morning at 8:00 am (after allowing myself a decent night’s sleep) I sat down at my computer, opened a new WORD doc and began My Novel.
I happened to have scheduled the Carpet Cleaners to come this morning. That was fortuitious, since I was required to sequester myself in the basement during the cleaning and drying process (which took about 3 hours). During that time, I furiously tapped out words telling a story which morphed and changed and took on a life of it’s own!
Eventually, the phone rang, the dog wanted OUT, and my husband arrived and wondered why I was still wearing my sweat pants and not ready for ‘date night’. So, I reluctantly emerged from my magical NaNo land. I clicked “Save” (for about the millionth time), and then came the moment of truth.
I clicked “Word Count”.
10, 421
I think my heart skipped a beat.
10, 421 words, Really? Yep, Really.
Of course, I may never have that kind of output again this month. (Not likely, unless I order the carpet cleaners every weekend!) But, that sure makes for an impressive start!
Just for good measure, I’m signing myself up for NaBloPoMo, too. “National Blog Post Month”. You’ll be hearing something from me every day. I don’t expect many of those posts will be this many words. Today it seems I opened up my “word floodgate” and I’m having a hard time shutting it off!
There is great power in words. It is my prayer to choose them wisely, and use them for good.
“…In this long eternal quest to be more like our Savior, may we try to be “perfect” men and women in at least this one way now—by offending not in word, or more positively put, by speaking with a new tongue, the tongue of angels. Our words, like our deeds, should be filled with faith and hope and charity, the three great Christian imperatives so desperately needed in the world today. With such words, spoken under the influence of the Spirit, tears can be dried, hearts can be healed, lives can be elevated, hope can return, confidence can prevail.
– Jeffrey R. Holland, The Tongue of Angels
Not only can we choose to “speak with the tongue of angels”, but I believe we can also choose to “write with the pen of angels”. That is my lofty quest this November.
– MoSop
Related articles
- NaNoWriMo: how to write a novel in a month (telegraph.co.uk)
- It’s NaNoWriMo Time: Pledge to Write a Novel in a Month (usatoday.com)
Latter-day Soprano 
Impressive! I’m always a little envious of my friends who do NaNoWriMo, but then most of them are already published authors and I don’t consider myself a writer. I did sign up for NaBloPoMo this year, I have yet to see if that sends me to the looney bin or not! Looking forward to your posts, I always enjoy them when I stop by.
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Lara, thanks for stopping by! Good luck on NaBloPoMo! I will watch for your posts.
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Crazy number of words–and crazy that you are both working on the novel AND taking on the blog challenge. I couldn’t deal with the “just do the words” minus the perfection I attempt and so dismissed the novel challenged in lieu of the blog challenge… I am impressed! Keep writing.
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Yes, definitely crazy! But, there is a sense of liberation with not allowing myself to edit the Novel (yet). I keep reminding myself “this isn’t for publication, just write”. It’s more of a “freeverse” exercise. So ironically the daily blogging is actually more stressful, since people ARE (potentially) reading! 🙂 Thanks for your encouragement!
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We have such a great responsibility. I hope you accomplish your goal and I hope we see much good come from these challenges-things that can inflence us and fill us with goodness.
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Christopher, so true! I hope I will, too. Thanks!
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