National Novel Writing Month 2019

I wrote my first novel! Well, really it’s in progress and not complete, but I did write fiction
every day in November and have at least the bones down on my first novel. The plot-line

and characters in their current form are already serving as a libretto for a ballet that I’m
choreographing, and I also will go back and edit and add on to the story to flesh it out as
a standalone work once I’ve had a break to get perspective on it.

I took on the NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) challenge in order to fuel my daily

writing habit and to stretch myself creatively in a new way. It worked splendidly! With all I had
going on last month, I committed to working on my book for one hour per day, every day, and
not to the full official word count of at least 50,000 words. Maybe next year… It was thrilling to
go around imagining characters and settings, key scenes, and dialogue. Getting inside the
heads of different people and their relationships, what’s important to them and the events of
their lives was a magical way to spend any spare thinking moments I had, and to produce
work on this project consistently. 

In the end, I came up to about 18,600 words, which is a whole lot more than any other

fiction I have written in the past, and to be honest I haven’t written a creative story since I was
a child. Academic papers? By the boxful (I can prove it). Books and books of personal journals, plus
some scattered poetry, sure. But to pursue a work of fiction this deep, this fast, was all new to
me. It was a huge challenge to show up to write every single day, and I did miss a couple of
sessions due to illness, the hours for which I subsequently made up. 

I got Chris Baty’s (one of the NaNoWriMo founders) book, No Plot? No Problem! A Low-Stress,

High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days for my Kindle and it was a fun and inspiring
read. Next time I take on NaNoWriMo, I’ll follow the his suggested schedule for preparing in
October to jumpstart my month. As it was, I just did a tiny bit of research and thought about
characters and point-of-view and then jumped right in. I also indulged in Elizabeth Gilbert’s
Big Magic: Creative Living Beyond Fear and it is providing ongoing encouragement to realize
my creative imagination. I love books about writing and making art, as well as nonfiction on all
the topics that interest me, and of course novels, fine and performing arts. I’m great at taking in
inputs and information, consolidating, organizing, and cross-referencing, the challenge is to
then create my own output. There’s a balance to strike between the two, always learning from
written and live sources and also sharing my own ideas and impressions. 

I definitely needed a bit of a break after my intensive stint of writing, and now I will direct my

writing time to reflecting on 2019, brainstorming for the new year and decade ahead, this blog,
my German writing skills, and poetry. 2020 excites me greatly and I believe there are wonderful
things awaiting all of us. What ideas are brewing for you to take on next year? As a sort of
teaser for the novel I started, which will be born once it’s good and ready, I thought I’d share
one of the poems I wrote to accompany the text, perhaps at the beginning of each chapter. It’s
a pirate story, and I don’t want to share too many details yet, so here is just a hint:

Let’s light this wretched world on fire,

Flaming out against the dark.

Refusing to get caught in the mire,

Facing consequences stark.

Let’s cross the rugged ocean deeps

When destiny’s siren calls,

Sleeping restless dreaming sleeps

After darkness falls.

Let’s overcome those in our path,

Then gather up the plunder.

Fools who fight us feel our wrath,

Before we send them ‘sunder.

Let’s savor freedom’s pungent tang,

And all we can of life.

Sing the songs our heroes sang

Find bounty amidst strife.