Fifty one weeks ago I joined a local writing group. We are five women (can I say we are all “middle-aged”, TKJandK?) who meet every other week to share, support, critique, guide, and inform one another’s written pieces as well as our writing process. Our small group embodies a wide range of backgrounds and expertise, and collectively we cover a number of genres of writing. I am a nonfiction writer. At my very first meeting last year, these women introduced themselves to me and then proceeded to catch up with one another about their respective writing projects. These kind women were careful to keep me in the loop, or, to reel me in when I didn’t understand something to which they referred; one such term was “NaNoWriMo”.
It turned out that two of the women in the group were participants in the National Novel Writing Month “marathon”. The shorthand for this writing event (which is actually international in scope now) is: NaNoWriMo. The website for this challenge describes it this way:
National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing on November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000 word, (approximately 175 page) novel by 11:59:59, November 30.
Well, naturally I was enticed, especially when one woman exuberantly declared that she’d met her writing quota BEFORE the end of November; her body exuded relief, joy, accomplishment, and pride as we sat together during my second WWW (Wednesday Women Writers). I had nearly a full year to think about this, so as October 2011 was coming to a close I checked out the NaNoWriMo site. I figured I could participate in the event while still making progress on my nonfiction work, uploading my writing for official word counts just like all the participating novelists. To my dismay, one of the few guidelines for the challenge mandates that the author write a novel; other genres are not accepted.
Thinking quickly, I realized that I could still participate without using the site as my vehicle for accountability. I would announce this on my blog, tell family and friends about my intention, and then write like crazy all month with the goal of reaching 50,000 words by November 30, 2011. I am combining three themes that emerged out of my notes about this writing marathon: community service, journaling, and an earth-based “ritual” that I am committing to practicing everyday this month. I decided to modify the shorthand for my project to “JennGon’WriMo’” (short for ‘Jennifer’s Gonna Write More’…), hence the “JGWM” title above.
Today is the fifth day of the month; I began my word count toward 50K on 1 November. I have met my writing quota everyday so far. For many other reasons, this has been an inordinately difficult week with some profound personal losses. Still, I have managed to step up to Life as well as to this writing project. I will keep my progress updated on this blog, probably on a weekly basis. I already feel empowered and I have scarcely begun. Thank you for your support and for holding me accountable. Now I need to get back to writing…
JGWM total to date: 10,639 words
All blog photographs taken by Jennifer J. Wilhoit unless otherwise noted.
