NaNoWriMo – Woo Hoo!

I made it! I made it! And the air from the top smells oh so sweet. I have written 50,224 words of fiction in thirty days and I feel great.

When I look back over my blogs I realise I moaned during most of the process. NaNoWriMo is a bit like giving birth. It’s horrible while it’s happening but the results are worth every minute of suffering.

I haven’t had a chance to look back over my work. I don’t imagine much of it will be any good but I’ve created some characters I really enjoy and there are some moments in the plot that have felt ‘right’. NaNoWriMo receives criticism that it creates more literary rubbish than the planet can possibly want or need, but perhaps critics don’t appreciate that the creative process is organic. It’s messy and sporadic. No author starts at page one and writes smoothly to the last page. Just doesn’t happen. Wrimos know that. I believe there is enough wheat amongst the chaff ground in the past month to grow a good story – as long as I keep writing.

NaNoWriMo has shown me I have the desire, the imagination and the dogged determination to write a novel and I’d like to give my heartfelt appreciation to the folk at the Centre for Light and Letters for giving me that insight. As Chinese philosopher Lao-tzu so profoundly says, ‘A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step.’ I feel like I have my feet firmly on the path.