OK, I never thought I would be saying this but I wrote a novel? Back in August I heard about an organization that promotes writing. They have deemed November as being National Novel Writing Month. During November, over 300,000 people committed to writing a novel in 30 days for a variety of reasons. Some just wrote for the journey while others to help promote their writing careers. In my case, I did it for the journey and because I had a story I wanted to write. NaNoWriMo was my crutch to help me stay motivated and focused during the 30 day novel writing excursion. Thank you NaNoWriMo! It wasn’t as hard as I thought it was going to be. Because of the short period of time to complete the novel, I could see the light at the end of the tunnel before I even began.
NaNoWriMo, the organization who promotes the concept of writing a novel in a month has a great website that actually helps form a community of writers, even local communities. As a matter of fact, there was even a regional support group that got together every Saturday at my local Caribou Coffee House just a couple miles from my house. Because I was an official participant, I also received weekly motivational emails.
For the more serious writers (which I am not), NaNoWriMo hosts writer workshops throughout the year to help prepare participants to finish a novel during the month of November. Having a good story and an outline or storyboard will make the difference between one who finishes and one who does not. While many of the participants will never publish what they wrote, they still have the satisfaction of knowing they completed writing their very own novel. That just might be the case for me as well. There have been quite a few people who have published their work and a some have even gone to make it their profession writing best sellers.
So today NaNoWriMo calls me a winner. I don’t see it quite that way but it was a positive learning experience for me. Truthfully, NaNoWriMo is the winner because if it wasn’t for them, thousands would never pen their stories.