NaNoWriMo for the Win!!!

I first discovered NaNoWriMo back in 2006.  There was a tiny snippet buried in Part Two of the Long Island edition of Newsday describing the event.  At the time, I was absolutely sure that it was a scam.  I actually went to the website and read the FAQ page three times before I was convinced that the people at The Office of Letters and Light weren't going to steal my work or my soul.  Once I was convinced, I got my mother and my sister to sign up too, and we all began that crazy, life-altering journey known as NaNoWriMo.

Before I began NaNoWriMo, I had written one novel, The Rogue's Kiss.  I began writing it back in 1992 and it took ten long years to finish.  I was never completely satisfied with the novel.  It was too disjointed and took way too long to write.  The person I was back in 1992 was not the person I was in 2002 and that was obvious in the final manuscript.  My first NaNo novel was The Loyalist and the Librarian, a time travel romance coming in at just over 100,000 words.  It was written over the course of 26 grueling days in November of 2006, and it was much more cohesive than the first novel I had written on my own.  Living with a novel every single day for a month, makes everything about it feel more immediate, more intimate.  For 30 days (or 26 in this case) that book becomes your life.  That is the beauty and the magic of NaNoWriMo.  It forces you to live in your novel and commit yourself to it completely.  Even if only for a month.

Once I had completed the challenge once - which for me, insane overachiever that I am, always means writing 100,000 words in a month - I knew I would have to do it again.  And again.  And again.  In 2010 and 2012, I made the choice to write two 50,000 word novels in a month instead of one 100,000 word novel, which is why in eight short years of participating in NaNoWriMo, I have been able to write 10 novels.  I am a huge proponent of the experience because it has made such a huge difference in my writing life.  It has changed the way I write for the better, and for that I will always be grateful to Chris Baty, the founder of NaNoWriMo, and everyone at The Office of Letters and Light, the non-profit organization that runs the event.