A 50,000-Word Challenge

Call me crazy, but I signed up for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), daring myself to write a 50,000-word middle grade novel by the end of November. So, far I'm at 8200 words, slightly ahead of schedule. We'll see how long that lasts!

The hard part about this for me isn't the writing. It's not being able to re-write. The idea behind NaNoWriMo is to free yourself from restrictions (especially that little editor who lives in a writer's head and likes to criticize everything you put on paper). But, I'm one of those writers who likes to revise as I go. I usually go over everything I wrote the previous day and touch it up before I go on. Can't do that now. If I stop to revise, I'll never make the 50,000-word goal. So, I'm plowing ahead.

In some ways, it actually is very freeing to just write and not worry about the details, to just get the story down on paper without judging it. We'll see how I feel at the end of the month, though, when I'm faced with the monumental job of revising the book.

Ah well. However it works out, I'll have the satisfaction of knowing I can write a whole novel in a month. That's an accomplishment in itself. :)