NaNoWriMo 2019

I realized that since I hadn't updated this blog in like a year, I hadn't had a chance to talk about NaNoWriMo last November!

So, a brief history: NaNoWriMo (or National Novel Writing Month) is held every November. The goal is to write a 50k novel in 30 days. I've been participating since 2003. I have only won once in 2004. I took 2016 off because I was beyond busy with school and two jobs and everything that even thinking of an idea was overwhelming! And 2018 was starting to be a year I thought I might actually win. Then the stupid fire happened. I didn't write for THREE days. I wound up managing to get 30k that year. So I guess that was a win, being I was homeless and all.

So that brings us to 2019, last year. Now if you've followed me in any of my writing circles, you know that I suffer from this awful plague of never finishing ANYTHING! Well, I guess I just needed a "tribe" of other writers to propel me. Because suddenly, in April of last year, I began to *gasp* finish things. So I thought that maybe this year for NaNoWriMo, I MIGHT finish a story!

After toying around with ideas, I settled on this one:

Essentially, the plot was my usual idea: Destroy Brian's life! (I do this a lot in many different ways!) But this time, I wanted each chapter to be a song title. And since DNA was their latest album and I had seen them in concert in August (that pic is MINE from the nosebleed seats!), I figured that the chapters should be titled after their songs. (All but one is.)

So I undertook this idea. I planned. I created a playlist. I wrote the minimum amount of words and more on some days. There were days I totally didn't think I was going to be able to do this. I had those in my "tribe" not understanding that, yes, I was pushing myself extremely hard, but I wanted to! And yet, I persisted. And I actually did two things:

1. Wrote 50k in words by the 28th of November!
2. Finished the story!

This was a huge deal in my mind. I hadn't won NaNoWriMo in 15 years! I had literally dozens of started stories that I had never finished! (Including the one from 2018!) Sadly, most of those were lost in the fire. But SOME survived in the cloud or email. So I've been able to salvage some of my works in progress.

But THIS. This was monumental! I actually FINISHED a story AND won NaNo in the same month!

Wanna read my NaNo winner? It's here!