NaNoWriMo

One thing that lays on every writer's heart is to eventually actually write a book.  Many a people call themselves writers, yet feel the task of book writing to be incredibly daunting.  Well, I'm here to tell you that writing a book is no big deal.  That's "write" (wink wink) it's easy!  I can confidently say that because I, my friends, have written my first novel.

Here's the catch.  Writing a novel is easy, revising and editing is the challenge.  How do you get through the initial task of putting your story down on paper?  The most important item you would need is accountability.  You read that right.  It's not a good plot, not a computer, not even research or ideas.  Although each of those are important and can make your process much smoother.  You need someone, something, some place that will keep you going even when you don't feel like it.  Once you get your story down on paper, the editing can begin. 

I wrote my first novel thanks mainly to accountability.  Who was I accountable to?  Well, not really a person, per se, but an event.  Every November it officially becomes NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).  It's an even where you as a writer log in and create a novel, from scratch, between the days of November 1st through November 30th.  You can friend people, sort of like you can on facebook or twitter, and you can see their progress and compare it to where you're supposed to be.

This was an amazing tool in finishing my novel because I always wanted to keep pace with everyone.  Since I'm competitive it was nice to have a benchmark to work against.  I am the type of person who figures that if one person can do it, then so can I.  My dream of writing can only begin if I put pen to paper. 

So, even though we're a few months away from NaNoWriMo, start getting in gear for it.  The challenge is incredible and the rush is amazing.  Then, once you're done, once you have your entire story on paper without worrying about editing it until every word spits out of you, then you can begin to revise and start planning on what you'll wear to your first book signing.  Hmmm, what will I wear???