Flowing Freely

Every November I find a group of people who are doing NaNoWriMo and swim behind them in the water’s wake. NaNoWriMo is the annual write a novel–well, 50,000 words in one month–campaign. I first attempted to sign up but didn’t like being tied to a certain word count goal, especially if my actual output was recorded and publicized on the organization’s website.

But I like having a push, which NaNoWriMo certains provides. I belong to a group where we cheer each other on; there’s also a Twitter feed where we can post our successes.

This year is a strange one for me because I’m finding that rather than swimming to keep at least a arm’s distance from the fastest writers, I’ve started swimming in another lane entirely.

It may be because the bones and meat of my story were starting to develop from last year. The constitution of the story–its personality and voice–has been determined. The skeleton–the plot–already outlined on Evernote. I now look forward to entering the story, not to meet any word count, but to see it stand on its own.

I see some common themes appear, but I’m also grateful to see how this novel will be different from the others. Either way, it’s wonderful to be in the flow.