A Slice of Orange

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED

By Kitty Bucholtz

Oh Joy! Oh Rapture! I won!

Remember I told you last month that I would participate in NaNoWriMo? The goal was 50,000 words in 30 days. At the beginning of the month, I felt it was a doable goal – 1667 words per day. By Thanksgiving, I wasn’t so sure. I was barely over the 17,000 mark and thousands of words behind.

But I had two things going for me. One, I desperately needed to create some new and improved writing habits, so I had it in my heart and mind to do whatever it would take to “win” this competition. (Everyone who hits the mark, wins. Essentially, you’re competing against yourself.)

Second, my two critique partners also participated and were equally motivated. We had a conference call twice a week for encouragement, accountability, and brainstorming. We sent emails saying we hit 10,000 words, 20,000 words, or had a breakthrough idea.

In the last five days I wrote 30,711 words. That’s about 123 pages. In my wildest dreams I never would have believed I could do that! I simply decided not to stop typing. I woke up in the morning, kissed my husband goodbye, asked God to help me focus, and started typing. I would look at my word count and think – another thousand words and I’ll be at the next 10,000 word mark. Or – another hundred words and I’ll beat Stephanie for the day. (grin) I heard the voice of Dorie, the blue fish in Finding Nemo, singing, “Just keep typing, just keep typing.”

I won a lot more than a competition. (I stopped at about 6pm on the last day with 52,415 words.) I developed some key new habits. I found better ways to get work done, things I never would’ve tried if I hadn’t been willing to try anything to win the competition. And perhaps most importantly, I learned what I can do.

That first weekend after NaNo ended, my brain was a jumble. I tried to remember whether I had paid the rent. My friends at church asked why I wasn’t my usual talkative self. I told them, “I used up all my words in my book!” They laughed and congratulated me.

By the next Tuesday, I was eagerly working on my book again, making notes, moving scenes around. By Thursday, I could see that if I deliberately chose to not let my new habits slip, I could keep up a far higher degree of productivity. On Friday, during our conference call, my critique partners and I started brainstorming a new idea for our budding web site. We decided that we needed to encourage other writers with ideas on how to keep writing. We are beyond excited about our plans!

Participating in NaNo was hard work. Friends and family were kindly told to wait until December. I snuck into another room on Thanksgiving Day to write for a while. Chores and errands were put off. My to do list on December 1 was terrifyingly long. But I have new habits that are pushing me to the next level in my writing. So I say – it’s worth it!

Kitty Bucholtz writes romantic comedies because, well, she lives one! She wrote her first book in the NBC cafeteria, the second snowed in at a Reno hotel, and the third from a tiny apartment in Sydney. Even though she loves talking about, writing about, and teaching about writing, she’s pretty sure she knows at least three people who aren’t writers.