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21 October 2015

NaNoWriMo | I've Reached New Levels Of Insanity



I've possibly reached new levels of insanity. As if living on a sailboat wasn't insane enough, I've gone and signed up for NaNoWriMo. I know NaNoWriMo sounds like some sort of delicious sugary treat that Willie Wonka makes which is chock full of peanut butter, caramel and nougat and gets all stuck in your mouth when you eat it so that when you try to say something like, "I know that it's not particularly good for me, but it's wonderful and I need more! Yum!" but instead it comes out sounding like "Na no wri mo! Yum!", because of course it's hard to enunciate when your mouth is full of peanut butter, caramel and nougat.

In reality, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write a 50,000 word novel during the month of November. Crazy, huh? Ridiculous, no? A truly and utterly insane challenge - that's for sure. Made even more insane by the fact that I have some serious grammar insecurities.

I don't know if you remember, but I did another insane challenge earlier this year when I blogged from A to Z every day during April (except Sundays) along with Jaye from Life Afloat. That seems easy in comparison to this. My blog posts are usually on the shortish side, probably averaging around 500 words each. In order to get 50,000 words written during November, I need to write 1,667 words each day! Somehow, all the words have work together and somehow magically make up a novel. And, even worse, I don't even get Sundays off!

Of course, by the end of the month, I won't have an actual novel written, but I will have the start of a rough first draft of something more along the lines of a novella. Then, the hard work starts - revising, editing, having people review your draft, eating lots of chocolate, rewriting, reediting, drinking lots of red wine, finalizing the book, thinking about publishing it, eating more chocolate and drinking more red wine in despair, and then, maybe, just maybe, publishing it for all the world to see. Wow, that sound tiring! I may not even make it to the end of November, let alone all tackle all those other steps in writing a novel. Oh well, at least there will be red wine and chocolate to console me.

So why am I doing this? That's a really good question. I'm not sure I have a really good answer, except that it seems like it an excellent form of procrastination. When people ask me why I'm not working on boat projects, I can turn to them, arch my eyebrows and loftily exclaim, "But, I'm a novelist! My inner muse is calling me - I must write! Writers don't spend their time varnishing teak or installing equipment, you ninny!"

Of course, this will all be so much more enjoyable if I have some writing buddies. Do you want to know more? Do you want to join in on this insane challenge with me? Check out the NaNoWriMo site here and sign up! It's so much more fun to do crazy things when you have company.

Have you ever written a novel or thought about writing one? What about NaNoWriMo - have you done this before? Are you going to do it this year?

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18 comments:

  1. I've watched both these exercises over the years and I'm smart enough (that means I'm too lazy) to sign up for something I know I'd never finish. I'll read your work though.

    Have a fabulous day. ☺

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    1. Thanks Sandee! I don't know how I get sucked into these things, but I do. It's gonna be a long November :-)

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  2. Sounds like you have quite the challenge ahead of you and I am sure that you can do it. It's just another excuse after all to eat more chocolate and drink more wine. ;-) Good luck with it, I would love to read the end result.

    www.travelwithkevinandruth.com

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    1. You nailed it! That's exactly the reason why I signed up. A good excuse to soothe my tormented inner muse with lots and lots of dark chocolate and red wine!

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  3. Wow! Your writing is quite entertaining; I'd read 50,000 words by you. So, just to keep you motivated, will you be posting on the blog what you're writing about? If your book was picked up by a major publishing house, what would the blurb on the cover say?

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    1. Awww...you're so sweet!

      I probably should post updates on FB and the blog to keep me motivated. How about something like, "A neurotic woman's husband convinces her that sailing around the world is a good idea. One tiny problem - she can't swim." That's just the current thinking. It will probably all change by later tonight :-)

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  4. Is this just an excuse to not have time to replace that joker valve?

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    1. Normally, I'd say you know me way too well, but I actually fixed the joker valve yesterday. Hard to believe it, but I've ticked something off of the boat project list :-)

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    2. Congratulations! That wasn't so hard, was it?

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    3. It wasn't too bad. Stinky, but fairly simple to change out the joker valve once I managed to unscrew everything.

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  5. Bravo ! ... and good luck. I'd like to join in the fun but a) I'm still sailing and am not the master of my own schedule at present, b) blank screens with blinking cursors scare the bejeezus out of me, and c) I'm too lazy. (honest but lazy).

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    1. I'm pretty lazy too, so I'm not sure what I was thinking when I signed up for this. I think I'll just write the same line over and over (like you had to do in school as a punishment) until I get to 50,000 words.

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  6. "Here is a lesson in creative writing. First rule: Do not use semicolons. They are transvestite hermaphrodites representing absolutely nothing. All they do is show you've been to college.” - Kurt Vonnegut

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  7. "Practicing an art, no matter how well or badly, is a way to make your soul grow, for heaven's sake. Sing in the shower. Dance to the radio. Tell stories. Write a poem to a friend, even a lousy poem. Do it as well as you possibly can. You will get an enormous reward. You will have created something." - K.V.

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    1. Are you by any chance reading a lot of KV lately? It's been ages since I've read any of his books.

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  8. Sounds cool. We're doing it too, only the NaNo YWP (Youth Writing Program) only requires 30,000 words.

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  9. I think that's great that young people do NaNo too! What's your novel going to be about?

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