NaNoWriMo Revisited

Five years ago I took part in National Novel Writing Month. Known as NaNoWriMo, the endeavor challenges folks to write a 50,000-word novel between 12:01 a.m. on November 1st and 11:59 p.m. on November 30th each year.

Encouraged by my buddy Jay, I decided to devote as much time as possible to this adventure. I did so knowing I wouldn't get enough sleep, as my daughter was just four months old and was waking up regularly during the night for feedings. Regardless, I wrote until midnight on many of those November nights.

Because I was constantly tired, naturally I became grouchy during the days and evenings, which, believe me, didn't go unnoticed by my wife.

Still, I managed to crank out roughly 26,000 words over those 30 days. I'd made an outline of my proposed novel ahead of time in order to make the process go more smoothly. I decided to turn the UFO/alien abduction concept album I'd been working on into a book, with the grand idea that at some point I'd release both works of art as an incredible multimedia extravaganza.

I was proud of myself for being so resourceful and for preparing in advance. In years past I'd tried two or three times to write novels, but after wading in quite a distance, I found myself over my head with no idea how to swim back to shore. So those novels died.

And so did my NaNoWriMo effort after that 30-day burst of activity. Sure, I looked at it a number of times in the ensuing months, and tweaked it a bit here and there. But even working from an outline didn't make the process much easier.

Because the object of NaNoWriMo is to crank through and produce as many words as you can and worry about what it all says later, I ended up going off on all sorts of tangents, and not sticking to my outline.

I forgot about the novel (well, not entirely; it's always in the back of my head) and spent time working on my short story collection. I self-published that in December 2010 (buy it here -- the holidays are coming!). After that, I kicked around some children's book ideas. I've developed a concept that I like, and am working with an illustrator, so with any luck I'll crack that market in the near future.

Also, in April of this year I started working on a memoir. I've made great progress on this book, and am nearly ready to send it out to some folks to gather opinions and critical feedback.

So it sounds like my literary plate is full, right? But last weekend at a PTO function I met a woman who's a published novelist, and she mentioned the idea of forming a writer's group with a few other people she'd met that night. One of these guys is somebody with whom I've already spent considerable time discussing our respective books.

These other writers are working on novels, but I think they'd be OK with discussing my memoir in a group. Still, I thought I'd like to at some point be able to bring fiction into the mix.

I thought about starting a new short story collection, but found that prospect too daunting. Then I did what I knew I had to do: I committed myself to returning to my novel, despite the fact that on this very blog I recently announced that my brain just doesn't work the way a novelist's brain should work (see October 2, 2012, "The Struggle.").

I returned to the manuscript this week and started making notes about what needs to change, what needs to get thrown out, who the characters are and how I'm going to move the story forward and not give up like I have in the past.

I may ditch the story again. I may take 10 years to finish, just as I did with my short story collection. But I'm determined, one way or the other, to write a novel.

I'll keep you updated, but don't hold your breath.