The first week of my NaNoWriMo experience was a little bit out of character for me. Although it is a very popular event, I had never heard of it before this year when it seemed the universe was trying to tell me something.
This is where social media really helped me. I had seen #NaNoWriMo trending on Twitter on October 31st and again on November 1st. But it was not until one of my favourite Fantasy authors, Kelley Armstrong, tweeted about her NaNo experience on the 3rd that I actually looked into what it was.
You don't need to berate me for my ignorance in all of this, I assure you, I have already done it myself because once I found out just what it was, I realised I had been missing out on something very special.
Thinking I had missed the opportunity to take part, I promised myself that I would do it next year. But one of my dearest friends, Tas, after hearing about it also, sent me a message and urged me to do it. The fact that she was pushing me to do it caused me to finally create an account on the NaNoWriMo website.
I knew that I was now 3 days behind everyone else and I was feeling very weary about doing it. Truth be told, I wanted to stick to the novel I was already 5 weeks into writing and the thought of leaving it to catch up on writing a novel I had yet to form in my head was more than I thought I could handle having just completed a long year of constant writing.
But then something strange happened. A plot for a Crime/Thriller novel, of all things, popped into my head and I quickly wrote an extract and synopsis. (I know I already covered this in my introduction to my NaNo series but just go with me on this).
The first week went suspiciously well. I met up with another very close friend, Zahrah, whose eyes lit up like Christmas lights when I told her that I was taking part in NaNoWriMo. She, along with my sister, has always loved to read my writing (in fact, only last week she was asking me if I had any short pieces to send her to read because she missed reading my stuff). That gave me a boost of confidence and now, with two friends and my sister cheering me on, I decided to give this NaNo project a really big effort. What is wonderful is that one of the tips on the website for continuing with NaNo through to the end of the month is to tell close friends and family that you are taking part. That way, when you feel like giving up, you remember that you might well be asked about how it is all going. It's amazing how saving face can be a real motivator on the days you feel like giving up!
I like to call myself a realist (my mum and sister both call me a cynic. Hardly surprising I disagree then) so when I spent my first week hammering out the plot of the novel and writing to catch up with the prescribed word count, I found myself waiting for the other shoe to drop. I began thinking to myself that there was absolutely no way that, having hardly read any Crime novels, I could suddenly write one in a month.
I admit, it was a little bare. There were no intricately woven storylines, no red-herrings, no suspense. But, considering I had started four days behind, the basic plot was there and I knew what was going to happen from start to finish. I figured the rest would come the more I wrote. I had total faith that I could do it. After all, I had just completed a dissertation for my Masters. A project that, in the beginning, was just a series of disjointed ideas that I thought I had no hope whatsoever of ever turning into a coherent research paper that I could be proud of. But I did so I went with it.
The rest will follow, I thought.
Oh, how terribly wrong I was!
Expected NaNoWord Count at end of week 1: 11666
My Word Count: 4195
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