Roadtrip to NaNo: Finding Inspiration In Your Writing Community

November is nearly here! To get ready, we’re taking a Road Trip to NaNoWriMo. On the way, we’ll hear from writers about how their cities can inspire your novel. Today, we stop in Denver, where volunteer Municipal Liaison Michelle challenges you to find inspiration in your local community: 

Ahh, Denver, the “Mile High City”! Denver is situated at 5,280 feet—aka one mile—above sea level in the heart of the Rocky Mountains. Denver offers so much inspiration to writers of every age; its beautiful scenery can evoke ruminative prose. And, of course, we can’t neglect the robust folklore that the Front Range owns: from the infamously haunted Stanley Hotel to the many Native American sites of interest. It matters not what your personal genre proclivities are, you can find inspiration for any of them around our lovely city.

But what, exactly, is inspiration? According to the dictionary, its definition is: the process of being mentally stimulated to do or feel something, esp. to do something creative. If the natural scenery, let alone the rich history, that Denver possesses isn’t enough to inspire you—and hey, it’s okay if that’s how it is!—let me shift gears.

Some people need a little bit more inspiration than some rugged mountains and ghost stories to keep them going so let me introduce you to what inspires me the most for NaNoWriMo here in Denver: the over 1200 active yearly participants!

I have participated in NaNoWriMo for seven years and I have had the distinct pleasure and honor of being a Municipal Liaison for all but one of them. Some may consider it work—I consider it fun. My Wrimos (and yes, they are mine… my own… my Precious!) are truly what make NaNoWriMo for me, and why I keep coming back. They are some of the most fun, friendly, helpful, and inspirational people I have ever met.

They are there, not just for me but for each other, at every stage: from the initial planning phase all the way through editing after November has come and gone. We stay in touch even after November is over, even if there are no works in progress to discuss.

So, despite the incredible challenge that NaNoWriMo offers, you can bet that you can rely on any of our participants for help and inspiration in a variety of ways—you can come to one of our write-ins throughout November, hang out on the NaNoWriMo forums, chat with us in our website’s chat room, connect via Twitter, or hook up with us for both serious posts and humorous posts on our Facebook page. If you’re not in Denver, seek out that community in your city, because it’s definitely there, and it will be your lifesaver, come November.

Do it Mile High City style—oh, and go Broncos!

Michelle Kellogg has lived in Colorado for nearly 20 years. She is married with two children, two cats, a hamster, a fish, and a voracious reading habit—all of which need feeding several times per day! By day she is an Instructional Designer. She has participated in NaNoWriMo for the last seven years, six of which have also been accompanied by the honor of being a Municipal Liaison. Her biggest inspiration comes from her Wrimos who she abundantly plies with candy and chocolate each November—because nothing in life is free, right?!

Top photo courtesy of the Boston Public Library.