NaNoWriMo

(Photo by mpclemens, CC BY 2.0, via Wikimedia Commons)

As I've mentioned before, I did National Novel Writing Month in 2022 and successfully wrote 50,000 words in the space of a month. In the end, it translated to about 175 pages, and I would not write a single one of those today. It's not bad in the standard first-draft way, it's bad in a kind of way that makes me shake my head at who I was when I wrote it.

A lot has changed since then. Over a year has gone by, I've matured quite a bit, I failed NaNoWriMo embarrassingly badly in 2023 (though the project I started on is still one I want to pursue at some point), and I've spent some time reconnecting with my love of reading. As such, I feel that I'm in a good place this year to give it an attempt. Due to aforementioned "personal stuff," I'll definitely be a lot busier during November of this year (and heaven knows that 1,667 words a day is easier said than done), but I figure it couldn't hurt to give it an honest shot, at least a more honest one than I did in 2023.

There are, however, a few problems with the idea of doing NaNoWriMo this year.

The first is the lack of the forums. For those who don't know, on the surface, the NaNoWriMo forums were the single most wholesome place on the Internet. They were lively, encouraging, hilarious, and accepting. Of course, that was only on the surface. A controversy involving insensitive comments made by a staff member brought out a real ugly, confrontational side in the community that led to an enormous thread of all-caps screaming matches and other such things. In the wake of this controversy, users also discovered a hidden side to the forums, in which it is alleged a moderator engaged in some truly despicable acts. As a result, the forums were locked indefinitely, and they remain so. I haven't looked into the allegations too deeply, but if they're true, then it's a dang good thing those forums were locked. The problem is that the forums were what got me through the process in 2022, and I likely wouldn't have finished without the encouragement they provided. Locking them down may well have been the right decision, but there's no real replacement for what they did for me.

The second problem is an issue of format. I cannot write well on a computer. For one, I inevitably get distracted and click over to YouTube. Second, something about the act of putting words on a screen as opposed to paper just dulls my writing skill, I swear. I have yet to produce a typed work that is even close to the level of quality as even the first drafts of my handwritten (A Good Day to Make a Friend) or typewritten works (such as an unpublished short story called "Parker Shell Escapes the Simulation" that satirizes the deplorable Andrew Tate). One must understand that you win NaNoWriMo by writing everywhere. In class, in meetings, on the train, wherever you feasibly can. And it's not like I can take a typewriter everywhere I go (they don't lend themselves well to discreet writing). I may not even have a typewriter this November if my poor Webster XL-800 can't be fixed, and I won't be able to use the Alphasmart Neo that saved me in 2022 this November. So writing on a computer may just be unavoidable. That's not great.

And thirdly, I want to write something longer. My 50,000 words from 2022 only translated to a measly 175 pages. I know that I can continue writing after NaNoWriMo is done as long as I get my 50k words in, but I'm not sure if I'll be able to do so without the rigid goal provided by NaNoWriMo. Maybe I'll just need to extend it to two months and see if I can to 100k words. But that sounds mega-stressful. So who knows what'll happen?

Really, I don't even know if I'll be able to do it this year. But I'll try. That's all any writer can do when they're working on a project. They can give it a genuine shot and see if it works out. I know I'm capable of doing this. I just don't know if lightning will strike in the same place twice.

Wait, why the heck am I writing about this in May?