We’ve all heard of the NaMos taking place this November. NaNoWriMo challenges writers to write a novel in a month. NaNoBloPo asks bloggers to post once a day for a month.
I’d love to take part in both of these events. I think they would seriously enrich me as a person and let’s be honest, I need a kick in the pants if I’m ever going to finish a second draft (which is turning out to basically be a new first draft) of my novel.
However.
November just isn’t a good month for me. I have finals right before winter break starts, so November is the part of the semester where all my teachers try to cram in everything they need to have taught me for my finals. I’m desperately trying to remember the stuff they taught me earlier in the year. I have a large Speech and Debate competition this month and a lot of the clubs I’m a part of are getting serious.
A month like July would be better.
I know I sound like a wimp using school as an excuse, especially since the point of the NaMos is to push past your excuses and WRITE. Unfortunately, I’m at a point in my life where I feel that I seriously need to value school over personal projects like blogging or writing (no matter how much I wish both pursuits would get recognition as legitimate parts of my life).
So, no promise of daily posts or the formation of a novel during this month.
On the other hand, I love the spirit of the NaMos, so I’ve set myself some (realistic) goals for the month of November:
- Post at least three times (hopefully four) a week on this blog.
- Work on my novel, Devil May Care. I’m going to write down random scenes that have been floating around in my mind, do some serious plotting, do more research to help expand my story, and get a second draft STARTED at least.
- Write in general! I haven’t touched Hell and Styx in MONTHS, and I really need to pick that back up. I have poems and short stories nagging at me to be written, and I want to finally write them.
- I want to read at least six books this month (hopefully I’ll push past that to a nice round number of ten). I have a week long Thanksgiving break, so this is actually doable. This is in the spirit of Kaitlin over at Reasoning Red Head’s post NaNoREADMo.
- Lastly, I’d like to actually start taking It Matter to Us, the political blog I share with my twin, seriously. As in, ever posting at all. I started it over summer and then dropped it when school started, even thought the point was that it would work hand in hand with Speech and Debate and keep me up-to-date on current events. I’m not setting a number of posts a week, but I think I should make five posts this month. That sounds reasonable.
What about you guys? Are you taking part in any of the NaMos? Are you setting yourself other random goals?
A massive shout-out to anyone who is taking part in the NaMos. They are making the commitment that I’m not–and I love that. It’s incredible to commit yourself to any of these tasks. Congratulations for taking the first step, and good luck!
52 Letters in the Alphabet 
I’m taking part in both of the NaMos but I haven’t set myself any other random goals. But I do know I’m going to be reading because I can only write after taking a break with a book 😀 Good luck with your goals; I have finals before winter break too! But my teachers have promised to be more realistic about giving us extra material in November 🙂
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Good to hear about your finals and good luck with the NaMos!
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🙂 Thanks
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I’ve been taking part in #BookBlogWriMo and my own modified version of NaNoWriMo where I am a lot more lax in my goals because this is the first real writing project I have undertaken.
I have been having a lot of fun participating in #BookBlogWriMo, it has been an excellent opportunity to get to know some of the other book bloggers out there and just share my book blogging experience. I love that I have had the opportunity to meet so many great people in the book blog world and hope to form some kind of friendship through our mutual love of books and reading.
My goals for NaNoWriMo were to write between 3-5 hours a day and to reach 25k words by the end of the month, and while I think I will eventually reach my word count goal I know that I am definitely not putting forth the time that I had originally thought to do. My boyfriend actually pointed it out to me the best, he said that putting the pressure on myself to actually write is making me not really want to do it – he says I should still treat NaNoWriMo as I would anything else and just write when I actually feel the want to do so. Since I have been doing that I have felt that while my content is short, it is higher quality than when I felt as if I was forcing myself to write.
Goodness, I basically wrote a blog post on your’s! *ramble ramble ramble* I wish you all the best with your month of November and hope you achieve whatever goals you set for yourself in it.
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Thank you! It’s great to hear your own take on this project. Good luck with the rest of the month. And never worry about rambling–it’s great to hear from other bloggers/writers out there.
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School is a VERY good excuse for not doing NaNo! I have wanted to do NaNoWriMo since the beginning of college, but like you said, November is right around the corner from finals and the professors like to cram everything in, so I too was never able to participate! Then after college when I couldn’t get a job in the field that I spent an obscene amount of money to study, I got the brilliant idea to work retail. 5 years of retail meant that I had no life in November and December and would wake up, go to work for 10-13 hours a day, go home, go to bed, wake up and repeat!
This is my first year doing NaNoWriMo and I’m still finding it difficult to stay on track with it with all the life distractions–family members in the hospital, wedding planning, and applications to go back to school! *sigh*
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It’s great that you finally get to try it! Good luck!
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