Write Writing Written: 50,000 words later... A decade of NaNo

Thursday, October 1, 2020

50,000 words later... A decade of NaNo

I started "writing" ten years ago. TEN YEARS PEOPLE! That's a long time. And I still haven't published anything. (insert sad face)
There were many, many times over the years that I gave up. I quit. I felt so unsuccessful! I was finished with this writing journey I began. But after a few weeks, I'd get cranky and annoying and bored. So I'd write again and my attitude changed.
I needed to write like I need air (that's a little dramatic, but how it felt).
I remember so many "firsts" on my writing journey. First rejection, first ugly story, first friend to snub me after they were nationally published, first critique group.
One of my firsts was trying NANOWRIMO, or National Novel Writing Month, which is set in November. Basically, write 50,000 words and you've written a novel.
Now, I'm a little competitive, so when I heard about NaNo, I decided to give it a try. That was in 2009. Since then, I've "won" NaNo seven times. I took off a couple of years because writing in November is hard and I wanted to focus on my family more

I've worked on, edited, will edit, all of those seven stories. I think that's success.
What about you? Do you Nano?

Just to record what I've done, I'm adding those stories here:

2009 My Village