NaNoWriMo - Thoughts

Every year, a bunch of crazy writers get together online to celebrate their obsession with the written word by writing a 50,000 word novel. National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is, for many young novelists, a challenge that most give up on when confronted with the task.

I have been doing NaNoWriMo since eighth grade or so. Maybe ninth. When I was young, I had this crazy idea that I could be a novelist. At the time, I had virtually no talent but a ton of passion. My early works are cringe worthy. Maybe I'll post passages from my copyrighted--yes, I actually copywrited my garbage--for others' amusement. Anyway, my first NaNoWriMo story was a perfect fusion of everything I was obsessed with at the time. I can extract the individual pieces. My weeaboo anime obsessions especially are so obvious. Not to say that I don't still adore anime. I just am not deluded enough to think that a mainstream audience would catch an Elfen Lied reference. Oh, and the sword fights. Half of the book was a poorly written fight scene. All style, with little tension. I thought I understood what Mary Sues were, but I was so very wrong...

I didn't do NaNoWriMo again until my freshman year of college, where, for one weekend, I pumped out a novel. It was pretty bad. It had awful characters, unsubtle plot twists, and was as brain dead as anything. Still, I wrote it. It was an important novel for me to write, since I learned pacing well from that story. Still didn't make it any less dumb.

Then, there was the vampire story. I might try something with that if I give it a once over. The plot was solid, but the writing style is probably awkward. I haven't looked at it for some time.

So, what of NaNoWriMo now? I have "serious" novels in the works. I can't afford to hold back now...so, naturally, time to go wild! Time to write this new inkling of an idea. Let's see if I can do it. I want to try out this YA Fantasy idea. I will rant my frustrations here for the time being. See how that goes. >_<

I'm going to go mad...