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.