NaNoWriMo

Maybe you've noticed that I've started writing quite a bit more today, and there's a reason for that. It's now November, a month that is most known for Thanksgiving. It is also known as the month of the Holy Souls in Purgatory in the Catholic faith, as well as Transgender Awareness month and Stomach Cancer month, but it also bears another significance. November is Academic Writing month, and 20 years ago, an event known as NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) was created and has been observed ever since. The event is used as a motivator for writers to really push themselves to write as much as possible. Traditionally it is for writing a novel, but any writing goals are encouraged. Given my background as someone who has been interested in writing since high school and as a man who got his degree in English with a focus on writing, I've been aware of NaNoWriMo for quite some time, but have never formally participated, but I've decided to change that and formally engage this month. The reason I've decided to do this is that over the course of the past two years I've really begun to take writing more seriously and have made a more consistent practice out of it, so I see this as a fantastic way to test how far my prowess as a writer has come. Just as well, seeing as I've reorganized my priorities, and have made some healthy lifestyle changes, I see no better time to delve into the month long event than now. How will I be participating? Seeing as it's already the 5th of the month, I didn't really do the proper preperation and thinking out to tackle a novel (at least one that I would be proud of) in this time, but I'm not going to let that stop me from taking advantage of this opportunity. In a nutshell, what I've decided to do for National Novel Writing Month is to put together a portfolio amounting to a word count of at least 50,000 words (the standard goal). I plan on making this portfolio a combination of the blog posts I write over the course of this month, a short fiction piece or two, and some poetry samples. By the 30th of November, I want to have something to show for the efforts I have put in. I actually want to have the 50k word count done by at least the 20th so I have a solid ten days to look over everything and edit my work so that it's in a state that I would be willing to present it, as that's the goal. As I said, I don't want this collection of my writing to solely be blog posts, so I'm going to attempt to branch out of my comfort zone and try my hand at some writing styles and genres I haven't delved into in a while. From my understanding, NaNoWriMo is about expanding your horizons and ambitions as a writer, so if I just stick to what I'm comfortable with, I don't see that as much of an achievement. I mentioned a while ago that I was working on a novel, and that is still in progress, but that's more something that I want to be me piece de resistance, so I don't think I'm going to incorporate that into the portfolio. I don't want my book to be rushed, but I'm voraciously ready to tackle a series of smaller projects over the month so as to have evidence that I participated. So without further adieu, let National Novel Writing Month begin. As of the end of this entry, I'm at 5,227 words. Not a bad start.