It’s November 1st and this weekend, instead of Story Cubes, I want to have a moment of silence for NaNoWriMo, so Sunday will be quiet. Today is the day so many of us would open our favorite word processor and start writing word 1 of 50,000.
I’ve missed it since mid-September, when I would normally start letting my mind think about what I was going to hammer out in November. NaNoWriMo wasn’t just about the hecticness of November, it was about the playfulness of October as the mind plays around with ideas for what’s to come, the stirrings of September, and the post-NaNo elation of December and the midwinter slog of revision of January.
It wasn’t just 30 days, but the things that happen in those 30 days could be special, too. I got to create Karl and Richard and then meet Eileen as she walked on stage through her own will. I would often wake up waiting to find out what happens in a story that hasn’t been written yet. For example, today I woke up hours before work. For the last five years, on a typical November 1 that would mean I’d sit down at the keyboard and finally be able to unleash some fun. Instead, today I’m eulogizing what used to be.
There are plenty of places that are trying to keep the spirit of NaNoWriMo alive this year. I applaud those efforts and I hope you’ll find a way to experience the madness and euphoria of a novel in November for yourself. I miss NaNoWriMo, though, because it was such a large community and now that it’s gone, the idea has fragmented into a hundred different groups.
Without it, I never would have met
- Karl Hyacinth, the curiously chaotic yet competent shadowy millionaire
- Richard Timothy, the fiercely loyal former pro cyclist
- Eileen Wright, the wounded veteran who took the discipline of ballet and turned it into the discipline of the warrior
- Stephanie Robinson, Eileen’s best friend from boarding school who went from a poor farm girl from rural Pennsylvania to graduating with honors from Vassar
- Renée Lemieux, the competent-without-the-chaotic wife of Steph
- Britt Bryson, the free-spirited, van-living hippie chick who became one of the best runners in the world
- Simone Moonriver, Steph’s best friend at Vassar. With the possible exception of Karl, Simone may be the best character I’ve ever created because she is never who you think she is.
- Ghostrider, an eccentric who actually manages to out-eccentric Karl
- And many more, such as Colleen Hyacinth (Karl’s wife and source of sanity in the household), Anna Richardson, Elisabeth (Ilse) Vogel, and so on.
I never would have met any of these people had NaNoWriMo not existed, and my life would be less colorful without them. Ride On wouldn’t be about to come out (any day now, really) without it. There are six more in the pipeline after it, none of which would have happened had 50,000 words in a month not sounded crazy enough to not do.
It’s only the first of the month and I already miss you, NaNoWriMo. May it rest in peace, and may you keep on writing without it.
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