My first NaNoWriMo winners’ certificate indicates that I participated and won for the first time in 2005. I can’t say it feels like yesterday, but I do have some clear memories of the experience. I didn’t know if I could write a complete story; I had never really tried. I didn’t know if I could create living characters, or even make it to the end of the first chapter. All I had was an idea for a book: who would be in it, why they would be there, and how it would end. I was scared of failing but I was driven by a deep need to find out what I could do.
After years of being a driven proto-professional, I had fallen off the cliff of motherhood. I was unemployed and at home with a toddler. Doing NaNoWriMo was the suggestion of a friend in a similar situation. “Just try it,” she said, like any good pusher. So I signed up on the website and set up a desk. I even made a calculation of how many words I would have to produce per day. Then, on November 1st, I sat down and started. And it worked. I made my quota, with some text to spare, every single day. Over the month I felt all the highs and lows of doing NaNo for the first time. I had a crisis of faith and recovered. I made the 25K mark and the story felt like it had substance. Cheering ensued. Friends questioned why I would do something with so little obvious pay off, and I realized that it didn’t matter to me whether I got published or not because it felt so good to write. Along the way my fear became dizzy excitement and I can remember pounding my fingers on the keyboard with triumph when I submitted that first word count.
A lot has changed since 2005. I won NaNo again three times. Then, on my fifth attempt, I gave up mid-month and fell into a funk. I realized it was time to make some changes. I needed to learn to re-write and revise. So I took some writing classes and, in one of them, pursued an idea I’d had for a children’s book. That book was published, in Dutch, last December. It’s good, and I’m proud of it. It wouldn’t exist without NaNoWriMo.
So why am I back again? I miss NaNoWriMo’s giddy optimism and I want it back. The publishing process, while gratifying, has also been challenging and I want to get back to story telling and writing. That said, I’m shaking in my boots. Nine years ago I had a lot of un-structured time. Now I have a part-time job, a freelance business, author’s commitments, and a kid. I’m not sure how I will find the two or three hours a day in which to write. When I go online, I see other NaNo participants gearing up with pinboards and plot outlines while I’ve got none of those. Like the first time, all I have are some characters in search of themselves and a plot arc they weren’t anticipating.
So I’m terrified but committed. I’ll make the time and I’ll fight it out. What I’m hoping for is the return of those glorious moments when I bat away the darkness of November to find myself in a different world full of interesting people doing startling things, for whom I desperately want to build a house of words.
Kate McIntyre is a writer and scientific editor based in the Netherlands. She writes here, there, and wherever an hour or two can be stolen. Her first children’s’ book, De Knikkelares, was published by Dutch publisher Lemniscaat in December 2013.
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