Joanna Karaplis

It’s November 15, and I have written 12,410 words in two weeks. (Plus another 4,500 words of guest posts and interviews for my blog tour, but that doesn’t count. Hmpf.)

This is actually just under half the amount of words that NaNoWriMo participants are aiming for by this point (25,000). My NaNo account helpfully calculates exactly how many words I’ll need to write per day to finish by Nov. 30, and the number keeps climbing. (It’s gone from 1,667 to over 2,500. Daunting!)

But instead of feeling defeated, I’m feeling proud. So if you’ve fallen behind with your NaNoWriMo project and suspect that, like me, you probably won’t end up with 50,000 words in the next two weeks, don’t despair. Here’s what I’ve already gained from two weeks of (almost) daily writing; perhaps you’ve accomplished more than you thought, too!

• I’ve written 12,410 words. Who cares if it’s not 25,000 words? It’s 12,410 more words than I would have written had I not been doing NaNoWriMo!
• I’m writing daily, or almost daily. Which means that I think about my stories more often: even when I’m not writing, a corner of my subconscious is busy figuring out the next scene.
• When I write daily, it’s not as daunting: it’s okay if I only produce 350 or 500 words, because all those little amounts add up fast! (I’m enjoying writing on my subway commute to and from work.)

I probably won’t have 50,000 words by the end of November. I’ll probably be lucky if I have 25,000. But no matter what my final word count is, I’ll be happy to have written anything at all, and I hope that this exercise will keep me writing well into December, and January, and February…

So join me and write on, everyone!

Way back in 2002, I decided to enter the 3-Day Novel Writing Contest, which was then hosted by Anvil Press. The rules were simple: write an entire novel in just three days, over the Labour Day long weekend. Sleep is for the weak.

I took up the challenge and churned out a short novella that I thought was pretty good (though I haven’t touched it since). I entered again the following year and produced a shorter novella, which I wasn’t pleased with. The third year, I gave up on the first day. After that, I was conveniently too busy with Labour Day long weekend activities to even think about entering again.

Anyway, I can’t remember when I first heard about National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for those in the know, “November” to everyone else). It was probably around the time I was competing in the 3-Day Novel Writing Contest for the first time, because I remember scoffing at taking a whole month to do what I was setting aside a single weekend for.

Almost a decade later, I am older and wiser, and this month I’ll be trying my hand at NaNoWriMo. The goal is 50,000 words (works out to 1,666 words/day), but I’d be happy with 30,000 or so. I got off to a slow start with under 800 words yesterday, but today’s a new day!

Feel free to follow my progress on the NaNoWriMo website. (Unless you’re just doing it to laugh at how few words I’ve written. That would be mean.)