What am I most thankful for?

While it might be a bit cheesy to say this, but I really am most thankful for NaNoWriMo. And the reason is this, I don’t think that I would be writing at all if it weren’t for NaNo. People always say that writers write because they can’t not write, but that’s not true, just ask Kevin Smith (warning: there is lots of cussing in the video, it is Kevin Smith after all)!

I am a sufferer of writer’s laze. I have a desire to write, but part of me (a big part) just wants to sit around and read or watch TV all day. But if it wasn’t for NaNoWriMo I wouldn’t get off my butt at least one month every year and write a novel, whether good or bad (mostly bad). But this year there is something in me that is starting to change.

That writer’s laze is still there, but I’ve been able to break it enough that I’ve written everyday this month so far and not just on my novels, but here too. And as I’ve been writing and struggling and having major success moments, I’m starting to feel like I really could do this year round; write at least 1667 words everyday for the next 365 days (that’s a grand total of 608,445 words!). It equates to about 1-2 hours of writing each day for me, if I can keep the writer’s laze at bay.

Of course, if I decide to edit my novels, which I really want to do this go around, I’m not sure that I could actually keep up with 1667 word a day pace, but I think that it if I could take at least ten minutes everyday to write something new, that it would be a successful year. It might mean I’d only write a few hundred words, but I could also write around 800. Either way, it is a win-win situation because it means that I’m taking that next step in my writing career. It means that I’m really making it a priority.

So I raise my glass to NaNoWriMo and say thank you for inspiring me to do what I’ve always wanted, be a real writer. Thank you for giving me the encouragement I needed to park my butt in the chair and just write. Whether good or bad, it can always be fixed. As Nora Roberts says, “I can fix a bad page, but I can’t fix a blank page.”