NaNoWriMo '14

To NaNo or not to NaNo? That is the question.

It’s that time of the year again when NaNoWriMo starts up. This year, for the first time, I’m uncertain whether I want to participate.

The main reason is that I already did a large writing project a couple of months ago. I started it on August first and I wrote every day that month (there was only one day that I skipped). By the end of the month, I was quite proud of myself to reach around the 46,000 mark (so that made it my best ‘NaNo’ word count yet).

But because the story wasn’t quite done, I kept going into September. After a total of 48 days of writing from start to finish, I completed the project at around 74,500 words.

So basically, I did a belated Camp NaNo. Or an early official NaNo.

But now November is arriving and I don’t have any idea what I could write about.

I mean, I have more time to write than in the past years because I don’t have classes or homework interfering.

Part of me is playing around with the idea of simply writing short stories throughout the month instead of just one big project (which is what I did in 2012). It’s less of a commitment since I dedicated a lot of time on my other project.

And then there’s another part of me that says maybe I should settle for a much smaller word count goal for November so I don’t feel too pressured to try and beat my amount from last year. Like maybe try to just hit 15,000 words for the month or something so I don’t feel too bad if I don’t write something every day.

But if I’m being totally honest with myself, I become competitive when it comes to my writing (I’m not usually a competitive person). Even if I say that I’m going to have a low-key NaNo, I’m not going to do it.

I’m going to want to surpass whatever word count goal I have established and try to beat last year’s (so it’d have to be over 36,000). And I’m going to force myself to write daily because of that stupid chart that tracks how much I write. I love seeing those bars of the graph grow.

But if I succumb to that temptation, that’s going to be a lot of short stories. And I don’t know what I can possibly write that will carry that large of a story arc.

Sigh.

Decisions, decisions.

…What if I freestyle and focus on just one story? I mean, I used to make up short stories on the spot for NaNo ’12. What if I did it on a larger scale, no matter if it makes sense or if it has plot holes? It could just be a story for my own eyes.

Even though I’m more of an outline person. I like to have an idea of where my story is going. Otherwise, once I hit a roadblock, I don’t know how to overcome it.

It’d be quite the challenge for me, though.

Hm. I guess I have a few options before me to choose from.