Why is it easier to do something like NaNoWriMo in order to define my writing goals?
It might seem stupid, or not too professional to use these kinds of challenges to get one motivated to write. But the truth is, we lack structure for this dream we have, and that we want to see accomplished.
And the writing craft isn’t just throwing things on a page.
Using someone else’s structure for our writing time, which is what these challenges provide us with, help us discover our own way of doing things. And pushes us to show up, every day, for the work we want to see done.
Let’s be honest, if you are anything like me, you’re mostly alone in the pursue of this dream.
Talking from personal experience, I have been doing regular writing efforts for more than fifteen years and the truth is, I can count from the fingers of one hand how many people were truly there, even if just to talk about all of this writing business… Maybe having someone to talk to about writing is the hardest part.
They keep looking at me as if I’m delusional…
And doing stuff all alone is hard, specially if we don’t know what we are doing, and need to find our own bearings first. I had had a messy direction in life, and only started to listen to my heart’s calling not so long ago. And I’m still trying to figure things out.
How to understand our Goals?
To know in our hearts what we want to do, and to put in the work we need to put in, when we don’t know how to do it, and where to turn to, and how to shut up all those little inside voices… and not just the inside one’s… It’s confusing.
And this is how I started to search the web looking for knowledge, and buying books that could serve as my mentors, and writing about this journey, and how all of these resources can help others like myself.
Finding my working processes, and defining my goals, are things in constant appreciation.
Hey! I have just started this blog for my english writing output, and I know I had been stalling for years.
I always had the goal of writing in English, but it took me too much time to show up for it. Why? I guess I was young and dumb… and scared shitless.
How can NaNoWriMo help?
First, it helps because it’s a fast drafting mode that doesn’t allow us to spend too much time doubting ourselves.
Second, because the goal is already set for us. We have a daily word count and to succeed at achieving it we have to produce the 1667 daily words. And no way we will able to skip a few days and accumulate. No. We have to show up everyday or it will go the wrong way.
Third, because it involves one of two things:
- or you have already prepared your materials, you have a plan, a story, characters and scenes, and whatever more you need to plan this story, and you just show up to write it (which has been my case this current year);
- or you have an idea and want to produce a fast draft for it, allowing it to contain all the usual mistakes that a first draft requires. Kind of like a very long session of brainstorming, where you have to produce 50K in order to be successful.
Everything else, is setting us up to fail.
Having an outward challenge can gives us commitment and serve as an accountability strategy.
We know we have to schedule our time in order to fit our two, three, four hours of writing. Without that commitment we just keep pushing it forward until our days run out of that space to write.
Not just NaNoWriMo…
A few years ago I came across a challenge called The 100 Day Project. It was a version of a teaching strategy used by Michael Bierut in his Graphic Design classes on the Yale School of Art.
When a student, Bierut challenged himself to draw one image per day, every day, during 100 days, based on a photograph from the New York Times. This was his own particular strategy to show up everyday to his creative work… and just draw.
When he started teaching, he brought that particular strategy to his classes with major success.
You can read more about this on the article Five Years of 100 Days on the Design Observer.
Then Elle Luna brought this exercise to the web and it got huge.
I have been aware of this challenge for almost six years and had entered it on three of those years.
First, I started testing it for my arts and crafts projects. On my first try, it didn’t go so well and I didn’t manage to do more than a few days of it. Second time around, I still was trying it out for arts and crafts, and this time I managed to do 100 tag adaptations.
On the third go (started on January of 2021) I decided to do a writing challenge. It went beyond the 100 days and I managed to write everyday, one hour a day, based on a quote that served as a writing prompt.
This got me my first rough draft of my currently work in progress, which I called ‘The Shapeshifters’.
On the following months, it got me working on all the characters, and plot, and subplots, and twists, and turns. Getting to November, I had a rough draft ready for a second draft.
And now I’m working on the third draft, on 2022 NaNoWriMo. I find that these challenges give me structure for my writing efforts.
And now?
In November, I now know I’ll be writing, which means that the months before I am plotting and structuring. Which means that at the beginning of each year I plan to be creating and imagining some new story… if all goes according to plan.
Is it easier?
It is easier to do something like NaNoWriMo, or The 100 Day Project, in order to define my writing goals. We are powered by a sense of community, while doing our work. And even if we stand alone in all of this writing business, we can lean on a well tested strategy to get us working on our goals.
Hope you’re doing well and participating in this year’s NaNoWriMo. If so, how’s your project going?
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Bye and Keep writing! ✍🏼
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References ✍🏼
