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NaNoWriMo

My Official NaNoWriMo 2014 Announcement

Official NaNoWriMo participant. Click the banner to add me!
Official participant. Click the banner to add me!

I’d been sitting on the fence about participating in NaNoWriMo this year. Last year was the first time I sat out voluntarily since I began my NaNo-ing in 2007. I sat out last year because I was struggling with money and didn’t feel that writing a novel would be a wise decision with my time. In many ways, I felt FOMO (the fear of missing out), as I watched my friends tweet out their word counts excitedly and rejoiced over crossing the 50K line.

I didn’t want to miss out again this year, but I also felt trepidation over what to write. The last time I won NaNoWriMo, crossed the 50k word count, was in 2010: I won that year mainly because I had my local group of NaNo friends who were rooting me on and planning out write-ins around San Francisco. We did word sprints together via Twitter and really kept each other motivated.

Since I was new to Denver in 2011 when I participated, I didn’t know many people here. I went to the kick-off party and felt out of place. Even though I established a small write-in on campus at the University of Denver (I was a student there at the time), I didn’t cross the finish line. In 2012, I overhyped myself that October and, when midnight November 1st came, I sat down at my laptop and drew a big blank. I walked away from NaNoWriMo that year without even starting my writing.

Anyway, despite these past several years of inaction/not winning/etc., I am jumping in again this year. I already had a few friends reach out, encouraging me to try again; yesterday, my long-time best friend (been friends for 25+ years now!) texted me and said she wanted to finally jump into the NaNo craziness this year. So, she is my reason to give this crazy marathon a chance again.

I yet to have a novel idea to start off the month of November, but I have a feeling I will be ok. After all, when I first participated in NaNo in 2007, I started writing with no idea how that novel would be like; to this day, it is my proudest work and the one novel I am focusing on getting published first.

Hope to see you participating in NaNo as well. If you need a writing buddy, you can find me on the website as heriko.