As of today, November 2nd, I have signed up to take part in the National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write daily on a novel or book-in-progress and write at least 50,000 words for it. I took part in this endeavor in 2011, and I did manage to write a little over 50,000 words in a novel called "Worldly Widow" that currently sits on my desk next to another unpublished novel called "The Clearwater House." Hopefully, one of them will see the light of a bookstore someday, but in the meantime, I am going to attempt to begin another novel, and this challenge is a good way to make me do the one thing I've always said I want to do with my life -- WRITE!
I will update here with word count.
Nov. 2nd -- 310 words.
Nov. 5th -- 1590 words.
Nov. 9th -- 3949 words.
Sadly, while this seems like a lot, I am waaaay behind where I need to be to actually finish 50,000 by the end of the month. November is always a difficult writing month for me because I'm busy most evenings practicing with my one-act team for the fast-approaching competition, and my days are full with teaching. It's very hard to find the time to sit down and write; however, I like the challenge of attempting to reach that goal by month's end. At my current pace, though, I won't reach 50,000 until late February. For now, though, I must stop for the day as I am dizzy. Maybe I'll come back to it later tonight after I rest my eyes and my brain.
Nov. 13th -- 6891 words.
Nov. 15th -- 8742 words.
Nov. 24th -- 10,398 words According to the word count chart on the NaNoWrMo site, I should be at 45,000 words by now. Oops.
As you can see, I haven't accomplished much in the past nine days; however, I do like what I've written so far even though I'm not really sure where the story is going. I wish this novel writing month were any other month but November. One-act practices suck up most of my evenings this month, and, of course, teaching takes up all my days, so finding the time to write is extremely difficult. But, let's face it, if it were held any other month, I'd find other reasons to not write like I should, too, so there's no perfect month in which to do it, and I should feel pretty damn good about my word count considering all that I have to accomplish this month. I will still bravely attempt to make it to 50,000 words, but I don't see it happening, so I think I'll just give myself an extension on the deadline and continue it until the end of this year.
Sadly, though, I never did complete what I set out to do, but that doesn't mean I'm giving up on the book I've begun or on my dream to one day be a published book author. It's all about the journey, so I'll write when I can, and when November rolls around again, I'll give it another shot. After all, I accomplished this the first time I tried it, so I know I can do it. I'd really love to use it as a jumping off point for writing a book a year, so wish me luck, and someday, hopefully, I'll see one or more of my books in the hands of actual readers!
