biancadarc.com Blog

NaNoWriMo

At the last minute, I’ve decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year. For the uninitiated, that’s short for National Novel Writing Month. Briefly, the goal is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I’m not sure I’ll get near that, but I’d like to use the momentum and support of NaNo to try to kick start myself into writing more.

I first did NaNoWriMo in 2005 and the book I wrote that month was sold by December and published on Valentine’s Day of 2006 – my first book ever – MAIDEN FLIGHT. So NaNo has been very very good to me. There’s also an active group of NaNo participants here on Long Island where I live and they get together every week or so to do write-ins at local coffee shops, etc. The encouraging social atmosphere is something I could use right now, even though everyone in the group is writing very different things.

So I’m going to give NaNo a shot. I couldn’t do it last year for obvious reasons. Mom was really sick in November – in and out of the hospital – and I was spending every moment with her. This year, I’m missing her terribly and feeling very down. Perhaps doing NaNo will help aleviate that a bit and help me concentrate on something else for a little while.

If you’re a writer, or have always wanted to try writing, I encourage you to check out NaNoWriMo.org and see for yourself the worldwide phenomenon this event has become over the years. It’s fun and even if you don’t finish, it’s worth a try!