3 of 13

Write now Article Tools

I had never heard of National Novel Writing Month. I received an email from a teacher of a creative writing class I had taken several months before. "I think you could write a novel," the teacher said. "Will you join NaNoWriMo with me and we can motivate each other." Me write a novel? Fifty thousand words in one month? I was finding it hard to write a poem, or short story, I could not think up fifty thousand words let alone write them, but I joined the group.

National Novel Writing Month encourages people to become writers. It teaches you to set aside a few hours a day and just write. It does not matter what you write about. No one is going to read it or critique it. It does develop in you, the habit of writing. There is no time to sit around procrastinating. You must write nearly two thousand words a day if you want to keep up, and even more, if you want to take a day off.
We get even more encouragement by receiving letters from Na No spurring us on. We each have our own little site that we paste our words into and they are counted. We can see by the meter rising, just how much more we need to accomplish in order to keep up. Our little site looks like a book and what a thrill it was to see part of my story in print, and in book form. That alone increased my desire to write a novel. My partner and I wrote back and forth for awhile and then I no longer heard from her. I was sure that she was too busy to take the time to email me.
At first I had a hard time wondering what to write about. I finally developed some characters and my story took off. I was not only training myself to spend time at the computer, but I was teaching my mind to think up situations, picture them in my mind and write it on paper. My book was writing itself. My characters seemed to have come alive and they were writing their own story. I could hardly wait to get back to writing, wondering what they would do next. I discovered the joy of imagining and putting my pictures into words.
November of 2005, over sixty five thousand people from all over the world signed up. Only nine thousand of them finished the course. I was one of the nine thousand. I was a winner and received a logo. My friend only wrote twenty thousand words and dropped out.
What did NaNoWriMo teach me? I learned that I could write a novel. It took me several months to edit, revise and add more to it, but my book was published by Publish America and my novel, "Beyond the Ocean," can be found on Amazon and in book stores. In 2006, I joined again and was once more I was one of the winners. I wrote my second novel, "Broken Armor," I have just finished editing it and I will soon have it published. I plan on signing up again in 2007 and every year after that. Thank you NANO-I will forever be grateful to you. You made my dreams of becoming a writer come true. You taught me to write!

Learn more about this author, Roberta Lee Small.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about The purpose of the National Novel Writing Month?
We want to hear your view. Write now!