It’s 3 a.m. on a recent Saturday, and I’m staring at a blank white Google Docs page. My hands are a bit cramped, arms slightly stiff and brain entirely fried. I’m on the final 500-word stretch of a 4,000-word writing-sprint during National Novel Writing Month, a free competition for ambitious writers. The event was founded in 1999 — it challenges participants to write 50,000 words from the beginning to end of November.
In total, I’ve written more than 20,000 words, so far.
I take a deep breath and start typing. Ten minutes later, I fall asleep mid-sentence.
That was a week ago. Today, close to the end of the challenge, I’m up around 38,000 words — more than two-thirds of the way to the word-count finish-line and on par to finish by Nov. 30.
Within the tight-knit community of fellow word-slingers on NaNoWriMo.com, the month-long event’s website, I’m what’s called a “pantser.” In other words, on Nov. 1, I didn’t have a plan, an outline, or any other idea of what my book was going to be about. According to the website’s definition of a “pantser,” I had “a blank document” and my imagination.
“Too many people think they’re not a ‘creative type,’ but to be human is to be a ‘creative type,’ and NaNoWriMo teaches you to believe that your story matters, to trust the gambols of your imagination and to make the blank page a launching pad to explore new universes,” said Grant Faulkner, executive director of NaNoWriMo in a news release. “That’s important, because when we create, we cultivate meaning. Our stories remind us that we’re alive, and what being alive means.”
Since the first of the month, I’ve discovered, for better or worse, the challenges and joys that come with long-form writing. As a journalist, I inherently write a lot; however, the narratives I relate are never longer than a few pages long and usually follow a pretty rigid structure. Thus, when a friend suggested that I join the effort and attempt writing a novel in a month, I saw it as a chance to summon forth some latent creativity and break out of the mundane grind. I jumped at the chance.
My novel’s tentative title is “A Good Man,” which, as related by a few characters, including my first-person self, follows a resurrected dead-man who’s on an evil mission to murder a Boston-based trashman, bringing about the final apocolypse — it’s complete with fire, brimstone, dragons, demons and angels.
It’s a classic story of good versus evil set in southern Franklin County and the eastern part of the state. Good, of course, will eventually win the day, or at least that’s how I hope it will end. The story is rather unpredictable because it’s written stream-of-consciousness, by the seat-of-my-pants.
Thus far, it’s been a good experience. While my writing isn’t Pulitzer Prize-worthy by a long shot, the process is rapidly disintegrating the preconceived notions I held about what was and wasn’t possible.
As a plus, I’ve also met other November novel writers working on their projects, many of whom have the same approaches to writing as I do.
Globally, as of Nov. 21, 15,687,900 words had been written for the event, according to the website — almost 3 million words were contributed by writers in Western Mass.
Last year, the event drew 431,626 participants.
“What I like to do is set a timer for 20 minutes and just write,” said Greenfield area writer Lauren Clough, who has participated annually for the past decade. “I can usually get about 800 words.”
Clough is about halfway to 50,000 words, writing a narrative about a group of people in northern New Hampshire that find themselves isolated from the world — isolated by what, she hasn’t nailed-down yet.
For the local writer, it’s about the process. National Novel Writing Month provides a chance to engage in a creative outlet vastly different from her professional career.
By day, Clough, who has degrees in psychology and social work, works as a lead support specialist at Florence-based Behavioral Health Network with adults with disabilities.
“(National Novel Writing Month) helps to put your inner editor in a cage,” she continues, noting that it gives her a chance to “just write freely. With the timer, sometimes that helps me if I just sit down and write — and not care.”
While she hasn’t tried very hard to publish, she’s completed many novels dating back to the 1980s, including one about a haunted group home, and another that draws from Native American folklore. As she relates, her biggest challenge is editing the first draft, adding that she’s, “really hoping that there’s one novel I write in November that grabs me to keep going.”
In support of the challenge, the national organization hosts an online forum and helps organize “write-in” events or gatherings of November writers based on region. Clough said one reason she continues to participate year after year is the community and camaraderie that comes with it.
“Whenever I’ve gotten stuck, I throw in a twin. So far, I have four sets of twins,” says Turners Falls resident Holly Givens, a freelance writer who’s also participating in the challenge. “When I really need word count, someone falls asleep and has a dream.”
As of Nov. 21, she had written more than 39,000 words.
Like Clough, Givens, an eight-year veteran Novel Month “winner,” uses the challenge to break form and take on a creative challenge. For work, she creates online content for websites and writes speeches, reports and newsletters for small businesses and nonprofit organizations.
Similar to Clough, it’s a contrast to her day-job, where she usually creates an outline before typing a word. Givens says she doesn’t plan anything for a novel.
“It’s a really wonderful thing,” she continues. “This longform has been really different — writing chunks down differently than long-form writing, and that’s the part I love about it. It’s really different. Having total creative control over the material is daunting.”
As far as writing process goes, “I find myself closing my eyes, like I’m watching a movie, and typing with my eyes closed,” she relates.
To put down words quickly, she uses writeordie.com, a time-based online writing platform that forces users to type at a certain speed or face loud consequences, such as screaming babies or an annoying buzzer.
While Givens hasn’t published a novel yet, she says the challenge is productive, in an artistic sense, because she learns “something every time, either about me as a writer or about how I see the world — it’s valuable in that sense..”