NaNoWriMo 2016

What the heck does NaNoWriMo stand for? If most of my readers are writers, they will know that this stands for National Novel Writing Month. My friend Amy joined in 2014 and a lot of our texts consisted of, so how's your word count coming? She's been trying to get me to do it ever since, and this year I finally decided to do it.

NaNo (as I shorten it to) is the challenge of writing 50,000 words in the thirty days of November. YIKES! Some days I say I can do it and other days I freak out about what I've gotten myself into. Never mind the statistic that says 89% don't finish the challenge. And it's going to be hard to balance this with three college classes, choir, drama, senior leadership, swim practice, and everything else going on. But I want to challenge myself to finish something because I've never finished anything other than my one novel. (however, that was a great accomplishment. It was 118, 000 words, ok.)

So, as I see it, here are the benefits of NaNo:

1. It forces you to make goals. In order to reach 50k, you have to write a little over 1,600 words a day.

2. It forces you to write when you aren't "in the mood." I always think I need to be in a certain mood to write, but I don't and in this challenge I won't have the time to be.

3. It forces you to actually finish something. I cannot tell you how many unfinished projects I have lying around in my room. Most of them could probably really good if I just kept going.

And the best thing is that these are not only essential writing skills, but good life skills as well. 

Okay and now for the good part: the synopsis of the novel I'm writing in 3 days!

Lila Osweil lives in a city full of shadows, but she has never bothered to learn what they hide. All she can focus on is how to escape her abusive father and run away into the arms of her childhood sweetheart Jacob. When Jacob tells her of the government's offer to give  her freedom if she becomes an agent for them, Lila accepts. But frightening visions that begin after her father nearly has Jacob killed haunt her, and as she begins her training, everything and everyone she knows begins to twist around her until Lila can no longer determine what is real and what isn't.

To 50,000!
~Clarissa