nanowrimo – Joe Powers, Author

As I wrote about last month, NaNoWriMo has come and gone for another year. Did you participate? How did it go? The goal is 50,000 words, but even if you wrote fewer than that – far fewer, even – if you took part, congratulations. It’s simultaneously overwhelming and exciting. Some people feel a lot of pressure to complete the task. Some treat it like a New Year’s resolution – which is to say, they sign up, maybe write for a day or two, tail off, and never pick it up again.

My personal experience with NaNo is one of mixed results. Last year I dove in with gusto, then petered out quickly and checked in at around five thousand words. This year, despite illness and various distractions, I wrote a three thousand word short story, around a thousand toward another one, and am currently staring at a novel manuscript just shy of 45,000 words. It’s a total mess, and will have to be almost entirely rewritten. But it’s a start.

A pedantic observer might note that only adds up to about 49,000 words, and they would be correct. The thing is, I didn’t use NaNo as a goal, but rather, a spark to kickstart something I needed to do anyway. I’m not finished, obviously. But the good news is, here in the early days of December and beyond, I can still work on it. I have no idea how long it will end up being; I’ll know when I get there. It probably won’t wrap up before Christmas, but at some point in the New Year, I will put the finishing touches on the first draft. And because some of the writing coincided with NaNo, I will be happy that I participated this year.

Just in case this is my last post of the year, let me take a minute to wish all of you a safe and happy holiday season. A heartfelt thank you to all who have visited me here. For those who purchased or read any of my books, thank you so much, I hope you enjoyed them. To those with whom I interacted with at any of the conventions and signings I attended, thank you for taking the time to come out and spend a few minutes chatting with me. I very much enjoyed that. To all of you who took any of my classes in the past year, I had a great time meeting and getting to know you and was blown away by the skills and talent level I got to see on display.

Here’s to a great 2024 for everyone. Drop in here any time, pop on over to my contact page for updates and all the latest news. Support local authors, leave reviews and help them spread the word about their books. Be safe, talk soon!

-JP

Halloween has come and gone for another year. It’s November now, which means it’s NaNoWriMo time! That, for the uninitiated, stands for National Novel Writers’ Month. Every year since 1999, aspiring (and existing) novelists frantically put pen to paper – or finger to keyboard, depending on your approach – in the hope that this event would be the inspiration that produces a novel.

The deal with NaNo is, we’re supposed to write 50,000 words over the course of the month, or roughly 1,667 words per day. You’re not strictly required to write every single day, although it sure does put the pressure on for the next session if you’ve missed one of those ~2k word days. I kicked off NaNo by writing a little over three thousand words! …on a short story, completely unrelated to this or any novel.

Does it actually work? For some, certainly. The event has grown in popularity, to the point where roughly half a million people participate each year. Of that number, between 10% and 15% reach their goal. Now, that might sound like a discouraging number on the surface. But take heart! Compare that to the overall stats – that is to say, writers who decide to write a novel regardless of what time of year, NaNoWriMo aside – and it looks a little more impressive. According to various sources*, of all who endeavor to begin a novel, around 3% actually finish it.

* (Not sure what this is based on, but it is frequently quoted by numerous sources across the interwebs. Possibly anecdotal, but there might be some sort of actual research done on the subject).

So… 10-15% versus 3% sounds pretty good, right? Maybe worth taking a shot at this NaNo thing? I guess it makes sense; a 30-day deadline forces you to buckle down and actually write every day, or near enough to that, to make a serious dent in a full-length novel. Realistically, if you wrote just 250 words a day for a year you’d be looking at north of 91,000 words. That’s a pretty thick novel, right there.

Now… the point of this is to write a novel. We’ve covered that. But that means writing more of the same project every day. Add to what you did yesterday, add more to that tomorrow, and so on. I think this is where some probably run into trouble. The average person probably writes well over a hundred thousand words a year, scattered across hundreds or thousands of social media posts, texts, emails, and so on. None of this contributes to your novel, of course. But the point is you might have the determination to write something substantial, based solely on word count.

At the end of the day, if having a strict timeline is the sort of thing that will motivate you to work on something every day and see it through, I sincerely hope you do tackle this November tradition. I would love to hear stories about how you dove in, stuck it out, and crossed over to December with 50k or more words under your belt. Even if you come up short and finish with, say, 31,284 words. That’s a victory, not a loss. That just means you’ve got a big chunk of that novel behind you, and enough to show for your time that hopefully you’ll keep going and finish it off anyway.

As for me, I’m working on something for NaNo. I can’t promise I’ll hit 50k, but I’m going to try. Here’s wishing the best of inspiration and dedication to those who wade into these murky waters, whether for the first time or the twenty first.

As always, thanks for reading and following along here. Until next time, stay safe, talk soon!

-JP

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