Thursday, November 5, 2015

NaNoWriMo for Grown-Ups?

Besides working on my entry for next weeks’ Fort Worth Weekly Xs & Os blog, I’ve been slowly adapting my screenplay, The Bookmobile, into a novel for National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Now, that may be seen as cheating on NaNo, but I see the screenplay as an outline only. It’s mostly complete, but I think this story is better served as a novel.

I’ve tried several times to work with the local NaNoWriMo groups, but they’re either meeting too far away, or have more of a child-like spin on NaNo that I just don’t fit into (or tend to write more in the Fantasy/Sci-Fi genre, whereas I’m more in the Realistic realm). I host Write-Ins at the Boot Camp, but to become an official “host,” I have to win at NaNo (meaning, in the 30 days of November, I have to have written 50,000 words). I want to have a NaNo group for grown-ups, writing about grown up things. It’s not that I don’t see the other groups as writing for grown-ups, but…their style is just not my style. A quick Google search of groups who aren’t going the playful route brought up nothing.

Maybe NaNoWriMo as a concept is just not what I need to spur on my writing? It may just be a gimmick for those who need that one time a year to get going. I want to make writing a regular part of my life. Perhaps I just need to do my own thing by creating my own brand of writing challenge? I do have a workshop I teach at the beginning of every year, Write Fearlessly- Kick Off Your Writing Life in 2016 (check it out on the Boot Camp scheduling page), so maybe that’s how I’ll get the grown-up writing done. It’s something that will help people transition their lives into writing daily.


Now, if only I can get to writing on MY NOVEL daily…