I was there. I was a Participant. I wrote. Even with the Guilt Monkey on my back and the Octopus looming around me.
I wrote at night, I wrote in the morning, while the TV was on, while my daughter was watching Bruno Mars on YouTube. Driving back from Thanksgiving in Oxnard, California-yeah-in the car-I was not driving.
Word count. The big phrase on everyones fingertips. Asking each other-What's your word count?
Various answers with emotional tags attached spilled into the forums pages and on line. FaceBook, Twitter, groups, clubs, write-ins and word sprints and word wars.
It was quite the battle for the month of November.
I was not as prepared as others. I found my rank as a Pantser as in 'flying by the seat of my pants.' I discovered Pep Talks from authors I admire and some I've even read. The biggest piece of advice was: WRITE for the sake of writing. Dont stop, let the fingers fly as ideas pour out of your head. Even if the vessel feels dry as a bone. Write something...there is no blank page.
Only quantity, words-words-words. Like machines, I and my fellow Wrimos wrote and entered our Word Count into the great Na No Word Update Calculator each night before our local time zone stroke of midnight.
The world was carved up into Regions decided by what countries, cities and areas were participating. This was all by volunteer writers. No one was forced to write.
But I for one went into this very blind. Ignorance was my bliss, hope was my editor and my daughter was my cheerleader. Had I taken some time to figure out that this would be a commitment of a minimum of 1668 words per day to average out the 50K, perhaps I would have paused and rethought diving into this typing pool of group frenzy.
I took off writing slowly, I know this because I can still view the chart of my daily progress or lack there of posted on the official website. The graph posted has a purple line that starts a zero bottom left and ascents upward at almost a true 45 degree angle. Each day I wrote my column for my word count would creep up closer to that line. That is IF I wrote my minimum of 1668 WPD. I did not.
For one thing, I did not discover the graph until Week 3 of NaNo. I was confused hearing about 'the purple line'. I had connected with other Wrimos (that is what we are called) on FaceBook on a regional group page. The writers were so varied. Young high school students, moms, college students, artists, so many out there.
I connected with about 11 Wrimos online and we would start a chat about our challenges writing. Physically, time wise and of course dealing with Writer's Block.
I read on Pep talk int he beginning, labeled under the Get Started Now tab.
Basically, it said to write-don't think, don't correct spelling or grammar, don't stop, just write, yes, there will be crap, you want quantity right now, not quality...write. Right now.
So, I did. I wrote. Sometimes in a frenzy during a word sprint spurred on by others in the Phoenix group. Ready, set, Write! For 15 minutes or 30 minutes at a go, we would write and then post our word count to each other for mutal admiration. And only then would we exhale and take a deep breath in and start again.
My final word count is 25,000, give or take a few. Some of it junk, most of it good. There are random interjections where I wandered off my story line-but I kept writing. I refused to be stopped by the BLOCK.
I will post again when I have collected my sanity from underneath my keyboard..... whew.
