My #NaNoWriMo
It’s well past the kids’ bedtime at this point, and I’m parked at the kitchen counter waiting for P to do her math homework. Soccer days are usually like this when we arrive home late, thanks to our regular ritual of stopping for vanilla cones at McDonald’s. Still, I have been happy with our soccer league. Very happy. This evening the league did a special team recognition and Pink presentation in honor of breast cancer awareness month. At the start of the presentation, the marketing director, a fit-looking mom wearing a pony-tail, shared with the league the story of her dear sister’s breast cancer diagnosis, fight, and succumbing to cancer a few years later. Since then, the marketing director has made it her life’s mission to honor her sister by raising awareness about breast cancer. The soccer league’s founder has supported her mission with corporate sponsors, pink training jerseys for every kid, and this evening’s presentation. I admit it was moving—breast cancer awareness, complete.
I am somehow just learning about National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, which is according to Wikipedia an annual Internet-based creative writing project when writers attempt to complete a 50,000-word manuscript between November 1 and November 30. It’s fortunate for me that I happened upon this information a week or so ago, when I participated in the annual Gotham Writers Conferenece. See, they had a writing competition, and although my manuscript did not win, I was offered free participation in their Zoom conference, which was a good primer for me to get back into writing now that my kids are back in brick and mortar school.
One resource that I have found incredibly helpful has been Abbie Emmons’ YouTube channel. Though there are a gazillion writer channels and blogs on the web, Abbie has managed to compile well produced, well organized, and handy video logs that are easy to digest and cut to the core of my writerly problems. So, with a manuscript that needs a total overhaul, at 50,000 words and 21 workdays in November, that’s 2,380 words a day. I think I can do it. If I can prove that I can re-write this sucker in a month, I would dig that.
