Nanowrimo lessons

I participated in Nanowrimo this past month. What does that mean? Aside from sore typing fingers? It means I wrote fifty thousand words on a new project. In 30 days. In a month containing Thanksgiving and Black Friday.

For a more complete definition, you can check out the website. www.nanowrimo.org.

Lessons I learned from Nano-ing.

1. Everything is better when you do it with company. I got in with Lia Keyes' warrior group on Facebook. We cheered each other on, and wrote together during timed Word Wars. The group was international which was a great reminder of how universal the need to be heard is.

2. Even when you think you can't, you can. I was ready to throw in the towel at 48980 words. A little more than a thousand words away from the goal. I was in an airplane, still miles from home after a week away. HGTV was on the little telly in the seat. My fingers hurt, my laptop was put away in my carry on. I told myself it didn't matter. I had put on a good show. But then, I decided to give it a shot. Why not? And lo and behold, I finished. I had a lot of fun writing snarky dialogue. And I found out something about my protagonist. Her husband used to be married to her sworn enemy. No wonder they hate each other!

3.I discovered the real value of writing quickly. Sneaking words in before my inner editor noticed. My characters came to the forefront and let me know what they wanted to do.

4. The best thing is now I have words to fix. Raw material to work with. My clay to sculpt into a new story. The fact is you can't edit what's not on the page. And I have 225 more pages than I did November 1st. That's a good thing.

Hope this inspires you to do a personal Nano. Sew a quilt block every day for a month, sketch 30 pictures.

But not this month. Wait until January.