Saturday, October 1, 2016

Maybe I Will Do NaNoWriMo This Year...


I have many friends who not only participate, but complete the NaNoWriMo writing challenge. If you're unfamiliar with the concept, it's basically this:

During the month of November, you write a novel. To complete the goal you must write 50,000 words during the month of November. I've thought about doing this each year since I began writing a few years ago. One major problem is that in 2012, 2014, and 2015 I've done a Christmas play and November is the month when the shows begin.

The question is, should I do it this year or not? 

After the latest Salt Lake Comic in September I decided I should begin a new project, one for middle-grade readers, one my son would enjoy. A typical middle-grade story runs around 50K words. This could work out nicely.

In order to do this, and to keep my full-time job, I've got to break down the project. November has thirty days. November 1 is on a Tuesday and the month ends on a Wednesday. I do not write on Sundays (except for blog posts...) which leaves me 26 days to write 50,000 words. That's a total of 1,923.08 words a day to reach my goal. November has two recognized holidays, Veterans Day and Thanksgiving, plus I work four ten-hour shifts that leaves my Fridays free. Since most of my nights will be busy with the play, maybe I should keep a writing goal by the week. That means I would need to write 12,500 words every seven days.

I did make promises and I need to honor. I think this just might be the year I join others who, on December 1 can proclaim to the world, "I did it!"

No comments:

Post a Comment