Hey everyone. I know that’s it’s been a while since I’ve written. But I’ve got some great news to shout about. I won NaNoWriMo!
What’s NaNoWriMo? NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s the time of year that comes every November when writers everywhere start losing their minds as they try to write a novel by the end of the month.
It’s all very frenetic as everyone tries to hit their 50,000 word count by November 30th. Over sixteen hundred words a day. One Thousand Six Hundred and Sixty-Seven words to be exact. That’s about 4 single spaced pages and 8 double spaced pages.
Well, what do you win? You win the satisfaction of having finally gotten that book done, especially if this is your first book writing attempt. Plus, if you have attempted before but gave up, NaNoWriMo will give you just the push that you need to get from point A to point B. There is no monetary gain. Just finally doing that thing that you’ve always wanted to do, but either never attempted or completed before is the reward.
Plus as a bonus CreateSpace will publish one free proof copy of your edited manuscript for free. A proof is just a copy of your book in paperback format that authors usually get to see what their books will look like in print. It is a review copy of a book. You also get 50% off of the writing software Scrivener for the Mac and Windows.
I did very well the first two weeks. Then I started to suffer! It became so hard. I went into it without a plan. No outline or anything. Just an idea and some characters that I had been playing around with for sometime. I had thought about entering before but never did. This year I did it on a whim. Only two days before it was to start I said “I’m going to do this!” It was both exciting and excruciating. Plus, I have some physical limitations that make it hard to write for long periods of time. So there were a lot of stop and starts throughout the day to reach my daily goal. It took all day to write that small amount. It was frustrating. But I prayed a lot and persevered and I made it through! Yay!
Although I had signed up on November 1st I didn’t start writing that day. I started writing the next day November 2nd. So I was seriously behind. I was writing 3,000 words a day in the very beginning until I caught up. Some days I wrote 2,000. All in a bid to stay on top of my game. Near the end I wrote only the minimum needed a day until November 26th when I finished it all up. Yes, in spite of everything I still finished four days early. God is good.
Would I enter NaNoWriMo again? No. It was tough and I didn’t like the pressure I felt to get it all done. I like to work at my own pace and you can’t do that with that kind of deadline. Most people who enter give up. Out of the 200,530 people that entered this year only 37,479 won. That’s means that only 18-19% of people that entered won. What happened to the nearly 80% that gave up or were just unable to reach the goal by the end of the month?
I was determined not to be one of those people that gave up or just didn’t make it. Some people had things come up that prevented them from finishing. But most of them gave up and quit. Giving up is easy to do when the going gets tough. That wasn’t going to be me. No matter what I was going to finish. I worked through pain, physical limitations, illness and a few other things. God held me up and gave me strength and I made it. I had a lot of starts and stops due to pain and physical limits. But I did it.
I learned a lot about myself during this time. I learned that I truly can do anything that I set my mind to. That with God anything is possible. Obstacles will always come. They are a part of life. But if you will just push forward through it all you will make it to the other side.
Our faith walk is like that. Satan throws all kinds of things at you as you walk through life to make you take your eyes off of God and follow the wrong path. Sin, temptation, pain, sorrow, tragedy, sickness, loss, financial struggle and numerous other things. But if we will just persevere in this life, and keep our eyes on God and continue to walk in His ways the rewards in the next life will be so sweet!
Maybe NaNoWriMo is something that you need to get your own first drafts done. Maybe you don’t want to write but there is something else that you want to do in life. Just step out and get it done. Pray about it. Let God lead you. Then do it. Don’t let fear hold you back. Be smart though. If you don’t have 6-9 months of savings don’t go and quit your job! Do what you can part time and then when you reach the goal go all out!
I believe in you. Believe in yourself. Trust God. Wherever you are meant to be in this life He will see to it that you get there. Just keep your eyes on Him and keep walking toward the goal.
Lord bless you
Copyright© 2010. Haneefah Turner. All Rights Reserved.
