NaNoWriMo and Nana

 This is my grandma, Rose. I call her Nana, and since I am the oldest grandchild, everyone else calls her Nana too. We just celebrated her 80th birthday! I spent a lot of time at Nana and Papa's house when I was growing up. And I remember a lot of different things, but one of my strongest memories would have to be listening to her stories.

We used to sit on the rocking chair and she would make up all kinds of stories. Usually they were about a little girl named Katie. And somewhere along the way, there would be sugar cookies in the story (and in real life). Nana's sugar cookies are the best!

I really believe that any writing ability I have must have been passed on through her. No one in my family likes to write stories as much as I do, except for Nana. Which brings me to NaNoWriMo.

Weird name, don't you think? It stands for National Novel Writing Month. Tens of thousands of novelists get together every year and try their best to write a novel in one month. And when I say novel, I mean 50,000 words.

Uh huh.

Fifty Thousand Words (that's about 250 pages)!

 And anyone can join. Whole elementary, middle, and high school classes join, as well as professional and amateur writers.

I wonder if she ever told stories to her younger brothers.

I've been writing stories for as long as I can remember. Seriously, I remember sitting with Nana at the kitchen table and illustrating a Bible story on pieces of paper. I'm pretty sure it was Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus. We stapled it together and TA DA! a book was created.

But I've never tried something like this before. Sure, I've written more. I have a few stories that are more than 700 pages. It's the space of 30 days that's intimidating.

So here are a few things I've learned that will hopefully help me attain my goal...

1. Keep it simple. My plot could literally be a Hallmark movie. That's what I was trying for and I'm really excited to start it.

2. Plan. Plan. Plan. Makes me think of teaching. You can never plan too much. The more you know ahead of time, the more the ideas will flow from your brain to your fingers.

3. Type fast. Lock up your inner-editor and get the words out. Edit later.

4. Dedicate some time every day until you reach your goal. I type about 2,000 words in an hour (give or take). If I do that each day, I can have 50,000 by November 25.

5. Try doing a marathon on a Saturday. Sit for 2, 5, 10, 15 hours...whatever you can sit for and just keep writing.

6. Have an awesome person in your corner rooting for you. I've got Nana. I told her all about it the other night and she's excited to read it when it's finished.

So if you're inspired to try out NaNoWriMo, please check it out at www.nanowrimo.org It starts November 1st, which means you've still got 9 days to plan. Happy writing!