NaNoWriMo Starts Today!

So for 4 years I have been telling myself I am going to commit to, and complete the task of writing 50,000 words in one month (which means approx. 1,670 words per day). This is the goal behind NaNoWriMo which stands for National Novel Writing Month. The NaNoWriMo website allows you to earn badges for things like securing a writing buddy, engaging in conversation forums, and meeting various word counts. It also provides writing tips, pep talks, and the chance to participate in local write-ins.

My site stats to date have been less than stellar. In 2014 I wrote 8,580 words. This was right after I split from my now ex-husband, and to be fair, I think I participated in the challenge as much to sit next to a certain hottie at the write-ins as I did to write. But hey, at least I used motivation (no matter the form) that year, as 2015 and 2016 produced word counts of zero. Oops. During at least one of those years I actually was in love (again) instead of just stalking an object of affection from an adjacent chair at Panera. Then shit went wrong, and the 1,470 words produced in 2017 were a response to the tumultuous time I was having with said love from previous sentence. Those words were essentially an outline of the chapters/song track titles of yet another novel turned musical I never ended up starting. Here are the chapters/tracks in no particular order:

1) I'll buy my own fucking flowers 2) How are you so bad at this? 3) Your friends are X&%$^ (I’m even a little shocked at the language I originally had here! And I’m hardly ever shocked. I'm also pretty shameless about my potty mouth. However, I'll draw a boundary line here since I'm not established enough (or at all) as a writer to not care about what my mom or employers might think about my character if I reproduced my original text here). 4) Red flags 5) Do what you want...not really

(As a side note: I do still plan to write this novel/musical -- just probably not this year lol -- so stay tuned.)

THIS year, the goal is just to write, and write, and write. Whatever and whenever. Maybe parts of a novel. Maybe not. Some poetry – probably. Blog posts – most definitely. I want to hit the word count goal, but I’m allowing myself the freedom to break off, branch out, and not be so OCD about following a structured plan.

So please, if you don't see me writing and posting get on my ass to do so (this basically means you Ashley since while mom "likes" almost everything of mine she sees on social media, I'm not convinced she actually reads it...I think you might be my only 'established real reader'). Whatever, writing is still cheaper than therapy and not as hard on my knees as running.

And after this post I will only have 49,428 words left to go so who wants to waste that kind of progress right out of the gate ;) (p.s. this also means I'm still short 1,098 words for today....haha).

P.S. My track record shows, I tend to resort to writing in the midst of tough times as a singleton....soooo those of you who have just been dying to introduce me to my perfect life partner, please continue to hold out another 29 days.