How I Discovered NaNoWriMo

As we’re starting to prep for November this year, we’ve talked to some participants to get their stories about how NaNoWriMo has influenced them. Today, NaNoWriMo participant Jessica Madden shares how she discovered the NaNoWriMo writing challenge and community:

I discovered NaNoWriMo in the funniest way. I worked on this novel idea I had in November 2011. I had no idea what this writing event was. Nor did I have any idea that I had just participated in it until NaNoWriMo was over. Throughout the month of November, a friend of mine kept posting about her word count for the day on Facebook, but I had no idea why she was posting it on her status. I wrote my novel within three weeks, and when the month was over I decided to find out what this writing event was all about.

Disappointed that the event was over, I looked forward to taking part in what I thought was a clever challenge the next year—only I didn’t participate in 2012. I was busy at the time and didn’t think I could write 50,000 words in a month. In 2015 I tried to take part in it but didn’t end up doing so. I felt like I wasn’t ready to challenge myself. At the time I was dealing with some self-doubt, as well as dealing with writer’s block due to some personal things that had been happening, and quickly told myself I would never reach 50,000 words.

It wasn’t until 2017 that I finally convinced myself to take part in the challenge. I started off with Camp NaNoWriMo, but didn’t take it serious enough, still dealing with self-doubt. I thought maybe I wasn’t ready for NaNoWriMo after all—until I met author Jack Heath during an author event at the Sydney Writer’s Festival I volunteer for. He spoke to school kids on how this writing event was a great way of challenging yourself. His words got me thinking. 

“If these authors could do it, then you can do this too.”

It wasn’t until Halloween when an agent tweeted about three successful authors she represents who had participated in NaNoWriMo and had written 50,000 words during the challenge. She said if these authors could do it, then you can do this too. As soon as I saw the post, an idea sparked and I started working on my idea, which was a Peter Pan retelling that I had been wanting to do for a long time. With little time to prepare for the story, I pushed myself for twenty-nine days to write, sharing my idea with others who gave me suggestions when I wasn’t sure what to write. Some people thought I was crazy when I told them about NaNoWriMo, especially with the word count goal I must reach each day to finish on time. I surprised myself with the effort I put into this project.

Now NaNoWriMo has become an addiction for me where I must take part in it, and if I’m not able to write I might end up losing my mind. During the non-NaNoWriMo months I set my own word count goals to meet each day to help prepare for November. I’m looking forward to this coming November and I plan to write the novel I was supposed to write back in 2015.

Jessica Madden was born and raised in Sydney, Australia. She began writing stories at the age of eight. When she was nine she realize that she wanted to be a writer more than anything in the world. Her best known work on Wattpad is her young adult novel Silent Love, which was published last year. Her fourth YA novel, Chasing The Storm, has been published recently.

Top photo by Aaron Burden on Unsplash.