Monday Moanings, November 4, 2013

NaNoWriMo - My Lite Version

It all began on Friday...

Image courtesy of
National Novel Writing Month

NaNoWriMo, a whole 30 days of intensive writing, a kind of writer's marathon (check out this link for details on the official scoop). Now I'm not a registered participant because firstly I'm not writing a novel and secondly, I'm not that driven, and so I'm doing a 'Lite' version. My approach is a little more relaxed because I've learned, finally, that it's okay to give myself permission to have fun, to accept the better offer when it comes along without obligingly picking up a side order of guilt, and it's okay to attend to my own well being.

So on Friday, Day 1 of NaNoWriMo, I spent a good chunk of the day with my sisters instead of writing. We had a great day together revisiting some of the wonderful stories of our childhood. We laughed a lot, learned a story or two one or more of us didn't know and simply revelled in time together. With a bit of a stretch I could claim that this was valuable research for the memoir I'm writing, but in truth no actual writing occurred, not a single word.

Day 2 - Saturday I was snookered by a TMJ/migraine tag team that effectively blocked all incentive to write, and replaced it with fatigue and an aura of unremitting gloom, coincidentally matching the weather. Again no writing, not a single word, unless I can count a grocery list.

Day 3 - Behold! A day of glorious redemption! A full day, crisp, bright and AWAY at Writing from the Centre. Many thanks to my friends Elaine and Janis for the time, space and great food. Sunday, I put words on paper, the ink flowed from a fully charged fountain pen, (which I had to refill half way through the day!), my brain actually formed sentences and put them together into meaningful paragraphs and the coherent (relatively - as is typical of first draft) pages stacked up. I estimate the word count to be just shy of 2000, but it matters more to me that I wrote, that I knocked off an episode or two of the book and that feels good, really good!

Day 4 - Well of course it's Monday and there is no sense in moaning about it. I'm off to the gym then the afternoon is clear for another luxurious stretch of writing. I'm thinking a modest goal of 1500 words a day is doable and if I manage that on 5 days out of 7, I'll reach 30,000 by month's end, which is just about what I need to flesh out the middle section of the memoir.

So here's my goal for NaNoWriMo Lite: Complete the first draft of Section B, currently titled "As Time Goes By" by November 30.

Cover me! I'm going in...

©2013 April Hoeller