My NaNoWriMo Experience

Guest blogger, Amy Arenson

Like most writers, my head is almost always in a book, and in my case, in a novel. I love novels. I’ve lived most of my life with my head inside a book, yet I couldn’t bring myself to write one.

Last October I lost my mind a little. I had a newborn, had just returned to my full-time job, and was exhausted. The last thing I could imagine myself doing was sitting down to write, so I puttered on a laptop and looked up National Novel Writing Month (which I now lovingly refer to as NaNo). An acquaintance in graduate school told me about it years before. I dismissed her as crazy, of course, and figured I would never write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. But there I was, bleary eyed, mind whirling in a thousand directions, and suddenly NaNo seemed like a reasonable thing to do in my limited spare time.

I connected with several friends from graduate school and invited them to join me. I jotted notes for a novel. During NaNo, I tried to write just over 1600 words per day; I missed the mark a few times a week and would binge write on the weekends when my kids were napping. I plowed through the writing and had a few moments where I felt like a novelist. Those moments kept me going when I realized that there was no way I would finish the book in time and had to move the story along at a faster pace.

My partner, family, friends, and writing community gave me support on days when I didn’t think I could write another word. We created a writing group across time zones and genres. It was everything my professors at the Kerouac School had pounded into my head while I studied for my MFA: “Get out of the ivory tower! Writing is about community.” I remember rolling my eyes as the message was forced on me, and now I roll my eyes at the me that didn’t get the importance of a cheering section.

Since NaNo, I’ve revised the novel three times and am preparing to send it to agents. I’ll have the manuscript out the door by October 31st, so I can spend November working on the next project. My hope is that the process of writing and connecting with other writers will soften the inevitable rejection that will come my way in November and December, and who knows, maybe I’ll pick up an agent and I can say, “I just finished my next novel.”

Now I am sitting in the middle of the theater and am able to take in the screen at once without being overwhelmed, because I know that if I take it one word at a time I can write a novel at breakneck speed.

Amy Arenson grew up driving fast cars in Iowa. She earned a Bachelor of Arts degree from Coe College prior to earning a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing from Naropa University’s Kerouac School. She recently completed her first novel, and is at work on her second. She lives in Boulder, Colorado with her family.

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