NaNoWriMo Update: Writing is a Habit

I’m blogging about my NaNoWriMo participation for a number of reasons.

1. It’s my first time doing it, and I’m really excited. My family and friends only want to hear about it for so long, so this offers me an outlet for my enthusiasm.
2. I’m hoping that by making my intention public, I’ll be held more accountable for getting it done successfully.
3. Most of us are writers here, so it’s pretty relevant. While the bulk of my days are spent writing website content and SEO articles, there is a very strong link between writing fiction and writing nonfiction. Yes, the two require entirely different sets of skills and focus, but writing is a habit that, once gained, is hard to break.

This last reason is the one I’d like to talk about in this blog post. As many of us already know, the purpose behind National Novel Writing Month is that it forces people to really sit down and get the words out. Almost everyone claims to have a great novel inside them just waiting to get out, and NaNoWriMo says, “All right already. Do it. Commit to one month of intense writing, and you’re well on your way to getting that novel done.”

Even if your novel sucks and never gets published (or if it’s fantastic and still never gets published), you have proven to yourself that yes, indeed, you can do anything you put your mind to, including writing 50,000 words in 30 days. And perhaps more importantly, you’ve developed a habit of writing that can lead into your next novel, or the one after, or the one after. It is this habit that lends itself to success.

I once read an interview with Mary Doria Russell, one of my favorite contemporary authors. In it, she stated that she gets up each morning, sits down at her computer, writes ten pages, and then goes about the rest of her day – whether that means intensive research, going to lunch with friends, or (I assume) occasionally vegging out in front of the television. Ten pages, on a generous scale of 500 words per page, is 5,000 words. Ten pages, on a stingy scale of 250 words per page, is 2,500. Either way, that would place her well above the average necessary to meet the NaNoWriMo goals every single month of the year.

How is she able to accomplish so much? Well, first of all, she’s a professional author, which means that unlike the rest of us juggling our creative writing with freelance writing jobs or office jobs or raising the kids, she gets paid for those words she writes every day. But more importantly, she is a writer. It probably took her years to develop the kind of habit that allows her to sit down every day and make that kind of commitment.

I’m happy to report that as of right now, three days into NaNoWriMo, I am finding things easier than I expected. I am well past my 1,667 word per day average, and really excited about continuing in this vein. Perhaps I may change my tune a few weeks from now, but I kind of doubt it. Why? Because over this past year and a half, I have developed the habit of writing. On an average day, I probably plug at least 4,000 words of SEO content, website writing, nonprofit articles, and the like. Heck, as of right now, this post itself is 565 words.

This means that not only are my fingers accustomed to moving pretty quickly over the keyboard, but I also have the self-discipline to sit down and just write. (Note: Not everything I write at first glance is roses, but I already know about the fine art of the first draft.) If you had asked me three years ago if I could write 50,000 words in a month, I would have laughed at you. Today, it seems par for the course.

As I mentioned before, this is my first time doing NaNoWriMo, so I may end up eating these very words. However, as a professional writer who uses words to make a living, I can’t help but feel that as long as the writing habit is a part of your daily life, you should be able to make the same kind of commitment that hundreds of thousands of people around the world made a few short days ago.