NaNoWriMoLetsGo

I started my second book, Blades of Grass, in 2012 as a National Novel Writing Month project, that special time of year when aspiring writers pump themselves full of caffeine and attempt to crank out 50,000 words of a novel by Nov. 30. I succeeded in that endeavor and documented the process on the blog. After it was all over, I was both supportive and critical of the whole NaNoWriMo movement, sometimes even in the same post. And while I still stand by my thoughts – it’s a difficult way to write a novel, and you will likely end up with 40,000 words of crap and 10,000 words of something possibly salvageable – it also gets you writing whether you want to or not, and that’s something with which I still struggle. So I decided to toss my hat into the ring with my current project and give NaNoWriMo another go.

I’m sort of cheating. I began this book last year and put it aside, then picked it back up recently. So I’m not starting from scratch; I’m starting with 20,000 words in the can. I would love to add the requisite 50,000 words to my working tally. But, between you and me, if I can reach 50K by the end of November, I’m claiming it a victory. I doubt the NaNoWriMo folks will care. You don’t actually win anything when you “win,” other than the satisfaction of saying you won. Hell, I could say that without writing another word!

So based on my current total, the NaNo website tells me I need to write around 900 words a day to reach the 50K mark. I think I can handle that. And maybe, just maybe, I won’t have to dump 40K of them at the end.

But I probably will.

Good luck to the rest of you out there #NaNoWriMo’ing. Feel free to vent about your process and progress in the comments below.