Hello friends! It’s November 1st, which means that it’s time for NaNoWriMo!!
In case you don’t know– NaNoWriMo (or NaNo because typing is hard) is National Novel Writing Month. During NaNoWriMo, thousands of writers take the challenge to try and write a 50k word novel during the month of November.
That means around 1,667 words per day.
If you want to learn more about NaNo and what it’s like to participate, I recommend checking out their website: nanowrimo.org. It’s really informative and you can see all the amazing reasons to become a Wrimo and jump in on this journey. There’s no way I could sit here and explain all the awesome parts of NaNo without forgetting something, so I’ll let them do the work.
As you can probably guess, I’ll be partaking in NaNoWiMo this year. It will be my 6th year. I’ve also done NaNo ’11, ’12, ’13,(I skipped ’14 because I had pneumonia) ’15, (I skipped ’16 because of college) and ’17. I won the last 3 years I’ve competed, so hopefully this year I’ll continue that streak. (Add me as a friend!)
But I don’t want to focus on me– I’ll save that for another post. Today, I wanted to talk about starting a novel.
It’s terrifying, and since Halloween was yesterday, I think that’s appropriate.
When you start a novel, whether you have planned it out for months before picking up a pen (like me), or you just thought of an idea you want to run with, it can be a little nerve-wracking. Blank pages are intimidating. I could stare at one for hours before actually coming up with a sentence that will meet all the criteria I’ve created in my head. I tell myself it needs to be relatable, yet beautiful, it needs to hook you in, but also establish something.
(I think I see blank word documents in my nightmares)
Whether you’re a planner or a pantser, I want to tell you that you can do this. You can beat back that monster of anxiety in the back of your head telling you that what you write isn’t good enough. It is. You are beyond good enough.
So consider this a brief pep talk. Starting NaNo can be scary, but you got this. Every great author began with a blank page. Who knows how long they stared at it before putting words to paper. Just remember– You will write something amazing, even if you don’t believe it, and I can’t wait to read it one day.
Cait Jacobs 