NaNoWriMo

Ok, so I know I have not updated my blog for a few weeks now, but to my defense, I have been planning to. Some days something will happen and I’ll be like, “yeah, I want to write a blog on that” but alas never get around to it. Earlier this week, for example, was the worst day of the semester bar none. But I am getting off-topic. I wanted to write a blog about writing.

I recently read a friend of a friend’s blog who posted an excerpt in each of her blog entries from her story she’s writing for NaNoWriMo. For those of you who do not know what NaNoWriMo is, you can go to www.nanowrimo.org to read all about it. For a second, I thought about doing the same. But then I realized that, wait, my story is in the very rough draft phases so most of it kind of sucks anyway. Plus, what if by some freak chance I want to publish this story and I have it posted on the internet for all to read and steal?

My story that I’m writing this year for NaNo is very dear to my heart. As November and NaNoWriMo approached, I had no idea what I was going to write about this year. I had reached 25,000 words of another story I had been writing in my spare time and a part of me didn’t want to start afresh with a new story, since I was so absorbed in the one I was writing.

Then, as I was chatting with a friend, she mentioned she was working on a story that she had been working on since middle school. I remembered that when I was a freshman in high school, I had an idea for a fantasy story, and it had stuck with me through the years. I had put it to the side, telling myself that one day I would write it.

And that day came in the form of NaNoWriMo.

And so, everyday of November, with the exception of my birthday, I have been writing feverishly and have loved every second of it. Every millisecond of it. I also think my story is happy to be out of my head and free on paper, since every time I sit at my laptop it comes out ever so naturally. When I am not writing the story, I am thinking about it. This has happened to me before with other things I have written, but not to this extent, where there is never a point, so far at least, where I think “then what?” I feel that I am not really the author, just the reader reading a book that hasn’t been written yet.  

But in a way, I feel kind of discouraged. Not in writing, but I feel that everyone and their mothers want to write a book. I meet people that hate to read, who hate English class, who want to write a book, to be a published author. So many people want to! Even people who aren’t writers, like celebrities who somehow spit out novels about their lives and careers and make a gazillion dollars.

Then I think of myself and my endeavors. Yeah, I want to write stories. Yeah, I want to be published one day. But why? Everyone wants to do that, even those who aren’t writers.

For every person who is alive, who has lived, and who will live, there is a story for each one. Every person is a story. Of course, not everyone is a writer, not everyone has the talent or drive or what have you. But I feel that with all of these stories and potential stories, what is the point of wanting mine heard?

Right now I’m at 30,000+ words for NaNoWriMo, a few thousand ahead. I look at my story, this story that’s been baking in my head for the past few years, this story that I love, this story I want everyone to love. But at the same time, I’m one of the many. And many who have way cooler ideas than mine.

But at the same time, if I never get published it’s not that big of a deal. Because I think it goes down to the fact that every day I write a good two thousand words, and despite the fact I’m tired all the time, I’m having the time of my life. I look at all that I have accomplished through the story and see all the hard work. And it makes me feel amazing! To look and think, wow, I can do this.

And that, I think, is a big deal.