Why We NaNo

What with this being a book blog and our involvement with so many wonderful authors, it might not come as a surprise that NaNoWriMo is a thing for us here. All three of us will be participating in this year’s event and are looking forward to all the excitement. As a result, we might be a little more quiet than usual, but with good reason!

Each of us has different reasons for participating in this event, and each of us is approaching it at a different level. Tiara is our resident veteran, with over a decade of NaNo-ing under her belt, Mogsy is an intermediate and Wendy is rolling in for the first time. Here’s what NaNo means to each of us.

TIARA WRITES: This will be my 10th year participating in NaNoWriMo. NaNo started out as something one of my friends mentioned to me way back when I was still in college. She thought it would be a fun challenge to participate in. She was right. My first foray into the challenge was a fanfiction that I jokingly wrote for the friends who were cheering me on. Thing is, that turned into a 70K word monster, but I chalk that up to plenty of time and ideas at the time. Those friends are still in my life, so to celebrate my 10th, I’m going to write a joke fanfiction for them again. I’ve successfully completed every year except one and that year was incomplete only because I had a house fire. I pick a theme every year for my story and work with that. One year it was erotica. Another year it was themed stories that tied together.

I NaNo every year because it’s fun and challenging. It’s like freewriting for a whole month with no reserves and seeing what I produce in that time. It doesn’t matter how well or how horribly I write. I don’t have to worry about revising or spend time obsessing over the details. I can put silly things in my story that may never see the light of day. It’s a bit of a stress reliever that allows me to dump whatever I want into the story and just go with it, and before I know it, I’ve blown through 50k words. It’s not really a big deal to me whether I hit the goal or not as long as I’m having fun with it.

WENDY WRITES: I’d vaguely heard about NaNoWriMo over the years, but never bothered to look into it because I never thought I could write an actual novel. That’s so much more than the short, short stories I’ve written in the past. I’ve scripted graphic novels and wanted to do Script Frenzy, but unfortunately, that’s been cancelled. But this year, I was inspired with the sudden realization that maybe I could write a novel with my friend Deacon in the same manner that I work with artists on my graphic novels. Then I was contracted to write a 20k word short story for a new video game. I was still daunted by the word counts, but as I snuggled up in bed with my laptop and my kitten, the words eventually started to flow and I realized that 20k wasn’t that hard. And if I could do 20k on my own, then why not 40k? 60k?

So this is my first official year doing NaNo despite my 2011 sign up. I’ve got a story outline ready to go that’s been sitting around for over a decade and I’ve got friends to help keep me motivated. I’m looking forward to doing something I never believed I could do and I’m confident that I can do it with the help of NaNo since I’m one of those people who work better with deadlines. Now to make sure I don’t get distr –

MOGSY WRITES: This is going to be my third year doing NaNoWriMo, and already it has become one of my yearly traditions. For me, the social aspect is such a huge part of NaNo. Sure, I love to write (I wouldn’t be juggling both a gaming blog and writing reviews for a book blog if I didn’t) but I can’t say I’ve ever aspired to be published or to be an author. There are a lot of ideas for stories kicking around in my head, though, some I’d like to get on paper so I can share with my friends and family, or just to have for myself. And I always say I’ll get to it, like, soon. Just, you know, eventually. Some day.

So when I first heard about NaNo, I thought, “What an excellent idea!” It provides the two biggest motivations that my personality is apparently wired for — 1) a deadline, and 2) friendly peer pressure. Each year, a bunch of people from my gaming circle and I embark on this journey to write 50K words, watching everyone’s progress on the site and cheering each other on. I’ve managed to reach my goal in both 2011 and 2012 thanks to the encouragement of friends, and I hope to “win” again this year.

As to why I NaNo? Well, besides the sense of accomplishment and satisfaction of finally seeing my ideas written down, it’s a great social activity and a whole lot of fun!