A Love Story
Here we are, halfway through NaNoWriMo 2021. My fifth. Day 15, 52,800 words.
Or in other words, completed.
I didn’t complete #1, in that I didn’t get to 50,000 words. I think I didn’t realize how diligent I would have to be, and poooof….
During the next three, I completed books, my best books.
And right now, halfway along in the time allotted, I am at the hate-the-book phase. Two-thirds done, though. And it will be finished and ready to be put away in the digital drawer awaiting editing in time, by just after Thanksgiving. And it will be fine.
So NaNo works well for me. Those three I finished are my three favorite books, books I’ve written that is.
Here are 4 things about my NaNo month that sets it apart.
- I write 6 days a week, 8:30 to 11:30 every morning. And never on Sundays.
- I don’t look at it during the other hours, or twiddle with it, but if I think about it, so be it. What is an author to do?
- I research facts and quotes and so on outside of writing hours.
- I walk for 10 minutes right before writing time, no matter what. And I walk again toward the end of the afternoon for about half an hour.
Which leaves a gigantic question: Should I (would I be able to) do this only once a year, or every three or maybe every four months? Or every month?
I don’t know.
I am in charge of publishing my books, and my husband’s books too. (He doesn’t do NaNo, he just writes every day.)
And having to do the editing, the publishing, and the advertising, all the formatting and cover selection and blurb writing and author-pages and series development, and so on, means a fair time commitment.
And then there are meals and household finances and a large family to communicate with.
Well, here’s how that works during NaNo, at least:
I do all that publishing glop in the afternoons, along with meditation and walking and meal prep. And I save formatting for the evenings when we’re listening to books or watching the news.
And that uses up six days a week.
It has also allowed us to publish a dozen books in the past couple of years.
(The math doesn’t work, as you may have noticed. I didn’t know I had to do something with those first NaNo books, so really, I’ve been an author-publisher for only the past two years. You know those two years. They redefined everything. Even though I was in my mid-70s at the time, I took on a new career. Which I was ready for because of NaNoWriMo.)
So I love NaNoWriMo. I’ve never been happier or more productive. The ultimate question remains though: Does it work in other months besides November? Can we do it more than one month a year?
I’ll let you know in February or March. Or you let me know, please.
Peg Lewis is a novelist, science writer, and world traveler. She likes to write about stimulating locations, such as the Pacific Northwest (the Always Maggie Series about Old Love — Maggie Awake, Maggie Alone, Maggie At Last, and Becoming Ernest) and the Desert Southwest (the Songdog series, in preparation). She also co-authors books (fiction and non-fiction) on space with her husband, well-known space scientist Dr. John S. Lewis.
