Lessons learned from NaNoWriMo: Introduction
Okay, I admit it. I didn’t finish NaNoWriMo. Or NaBloPoMo. Life and other web stuff got in the way of the writing. However, I’m fortunate that one of my friends, who did finish NaNoWriMo, has agreed to write a series of guest posts about her lessons learned.
Caitlin Fitzsimmons is a London-based writer originally from Sydney, Australia. She is a seasoned journalist, with a decade of experience writing for newspapers such as The Guardian and The Australian and consumer and business magazines. Among other specialties such as media and technology, Caitlin is a travel and food writer, with a penchant for exploring off-beat destinations with an interesting social or cultural slant.
When not writing or travelling, she loves reading books, watching theatre, cooking and inline skating.
Her professional site is found at www.caitlinfitzsimmons.com, and she also keeps a personal blog at www.niltiac.net, a travel website at www.roamingtales.com and a food blog at www.thegooseberryfool.com.
Caitlin writes:
I feel like I’ve run a marathon. I’ve just completed NaNoWriMo, which is perhaps the literary equivalent.
For those who don’t know, it stands for National Novel Writing Month, though it’s now a truly international event with participants from Baltimore to Berlin, and the idea is to write a novel in one month. You are not allowed to start until November 1 and you must finish by midnight on November 30. The benchmark is 50,000 words so once you get beyond that and your word count is verified by their software, then you have won NaNoWriMo. It’s tough and most people don’t finish; this year they had 15,000 winners out of more than 100,000 participants. There’s no prize and no one reads your novel, you do it for the fun and the glory.
So why did Caitlin do NaNoWriMo and what did she learn? Check back over the next six days for answers to these questions, as Caitlin shares the experience of writing 50,000 words during the month of November.
I didn’t finish NaNoWriMo either. Didn’t finish NaBloPoMo. But I did finish an 18-page paper and something like eight essays for my Medieval Lit class, so I don’t feel like too big a loser. I’m thinking of starting something though, how about NaProNoMo (National Procrastinators Novel Month, or National Procrastinate No Mo’)? Hmm.