I’ve participated in National Novel Writing Month since I moved to Salt Lake City in 2003. Literally, the day I arrived in the city was the first day of my first year, so I can remember it easily.

My tagline for the month is “I’m a novelist, but only in November.” I’m more of a vignette writer than a novelist anyway; I don’t always have an idea that could fill a novel.

I haven’t written a novel every year. In fact, I took last year off entirely, though I showed up at a couple events. And there have been a few rebellion years where I tried to accomplish tasks and awarded myself with points rather than counting words. I use NaNo for the motivation to get things done. I wrote Crowd Sourced Indexing one year for NaNo. I’ve tried to accomplish genealogy tasks more than once. One year I did a lot of organizing and digitizing of my genealogy stuff, while other years I tried to write for genealogy, but it didn’t work at the pace NaNo required.

This year, I am participating again and rebelling again. I’m trying to digitize a lot more of the things in my house. I converted all my CDs to MP3s years ago and I started scanning in the books to go with them; so continuing and hopefully finishing that will be part of my project. I also have a box of cassettes and a shelf of LPs that I hope to get through. I want to get through piles of papers that I don’t use but don’t want to just throw away.

I have been digitizing all of my genealogy conference materials for a while. I finally got back to it last month with the final three books and began NaNo with one book left. It’s done now.

I should have a bonfire for all that, but it will probably end up in recycling. I’ve attended every year since 2005 and they used to give out a giant book of the syllabus with all the handouts; that’s what the thick books and the binders are about. Other things in the pile include the daily planners, family finders, and recordings. Some years came with a CD or flash drive, and those usually saved me a lot of work scanning pages.

So now that the first task is finished, I’m on to other things. I hope I have enough stuff to scan to fill the month. I have a feeling that I do.

Who else does other things beyond writing for NaNoWriMo?

It’s that time of year again, National Novel Writing Month. We just had our Launch Party for Salt Lake County. This is my tenth year as Municipal Liaison for the region, and my fourteenth year of participation.

No, I haven’t written fourteen novels. One year, I tried to rewrite one from a previous year because I finally came up with an ending so I had somewhere to take it instead of nowhere, but besides having an ending, it wasn’t much of an improvement. And I’ve rebelled a few years and done things besides write novels. At least one year was genealogy organizing. Did I do that for two years? Maybe. And a Camp NaNo one summer too.

I had a weird dream just a week or two ago that I wrote down and might be able to turn into a story. I’ll have to think about it more. That’s the only idea I have so far, but I’ve gotten ideas from dreams before. I usually have a weird dream near the end of November and wish I’d had that idea all month. I also have a programming project I want to finish and in the next month would be best, so that may be my rebellion plan. And there’s always some genealogy stuff to get done for my own family, which has taken a backseat to clients for a while again.

I still have a few days to decide what to do, and I type fast enough that I can change my mind later. My second year of NaNo, I forgot about it and didn’t come up with anything to write until the tenth day. Yes, I still finished 50k that year. I won’t be breaking my winning streak this year either, I just don’t know yet what I’ll be doing to get there.

It’s about that time again. We had a kick-off party last Saturday, and this Saturday begins the month of November which is National Novel Writing Month.

I first discovered NaNoWriMo in October 2003, just before I was moving from Nashville to Salt Lake City. I drove into Utah on November 1st and I can’t remember if I actually began my first NaNo novel that day or a little later. I think that was the first year that NaNo had regions and it was for sure the first year of MLs (Municipal Liaisons). Four years later, I was ML for Salt Lake City, and some years later we renamed our region to Salt Lake County, which was more representative of the region.

The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words during the month of November. The original rules were to start writing something new, but they have slacked the rules. Most people still follow the original rule. And anyone is entitled to be a rebel.

The purpose of NaNoWriMo is to provide the motivation to get some writing done. You need a goal — 50,000 words — and a deadline — November 30th. Those two things make all the difference between writing a novel and doing nothing.

I have won every year, as my OCD requires, though several have been rebellion years. I have used NaNo for genealogy a few times. Last year and this past summer for Camp NaNo I did genealogy organizing. I had a lot of files sitting around that needed entering into my database and both were a huge success. An earlier year, I tried to get some genealogy writing done, but it didn’t go as well. I got 50k words written in every year, even if it wasn’t in the format I was expecting.

I’m still not sure what to do this year, so I’m leaving my options open. I have two ideas, but neither idea has a story yet that I can stretch to 50k words. I also have more genealogy to sort through, as always. I realized that I missed some things. So I’m going to give one story idea a chance first. If I have trouble, I might give the other a chance. And I am likely to put more genealogy organizing towards my word count again.

Let’s see what I can get done next month. What are your plans for November?

Another year of National Novel Writing Month has come to an end. I finished with 50,055 words a few days early and still hadn’t come up with any kind of ending for my story, so I stopped at that point. I will soon find more time for blogging and my own genealogy research. I still have to finish blogging the pictures from Ukraine and Paris, then onto all the records.

This was my sixth year as Municipal Liaison. MLs are in charge of planning activities for the locals, like write-ins and parties. Kaitlyn has been my co-ML for several years, and this year we had an ML in training, Ike. Next year, we’ll get him signed up officially — this year, he volunteered 30 minutes before the kick-off.

My writers were such a pleasure this year. Last year, we had some grief from a couple of them even before November, but this year they were all wonderful. No fights, no threats of secession, they hosted lots of write-ins, just a couple posts that needed moderating in our forum.

Last night, we had a Last Chance Write-In, in part because Kaitlyn headed off for a family vacation this morning and won’t make it to our TGIO party tonight. Ike had great timing to volunteer this year, and he was a lot of fun to hang out with.

Other events from this month include my computer dying and having to buy a new one. I ended up with a great deal on Wednesday, even better than the Black Friday price. The deals were so good that day, I also bought on a new desk and chair. The change of scenery has been good for me.

After tonight’s party, it’s back to more normal. Until next year.

Since 2003, I have participated in National Novel Writing Month. Since its inception in 1999 with 21 participants, to last year’s 200k participants, writers have used November (or originally July) to attempt to write a 50k (or more) word novel.

The rules are pretty simple: write a work of fiction, at least 50,000 words, do not edit, finish in 30 days, it’s about quantity not quality.

For me, some years, the novel ends up somewhere unexpected. Some years, I’ve found my novel switching genres from what I planned. Some years have been a disaster.

NaNoWriMo is about finding the motivation to write something within a given amount of time, with a deadline, alongside of others with the same goal. For five years, I have been the Municipal Liaison for SLC. It is my job to help motivate everyone in the region, as well as plan the parties and the write-ins.

Technically, I was a rebel last year, but unintentionally. My novel crashed and burned right from the start and I ended up writing short stories, fan fiction, and counted newsletter articles and blog posts. I wrote 50k during November, but it wasn’t a novel.

This year, I am a rebel, deliberately. I have a Rosenthal Book and a Halpert Book, each originally compiled years ago. I bring these to weddings and bar mitzvahs and such to share with my relatives. I started rewriting the Rosenthal book to contain fewer charts, more content, and lots more pictures. I never finished. So instead of writing fiction this year, I’m going to rewrite my family books, and create the other two. In the end, there should be one for each grandparent.

I see several challenges in this attempt.

1. Even with four books, can I write 50k words?
2. Can I count pictures? A picture is worth 1000 words, after all, so how much do they count? ;-)
3. How much reading will I have to do to be able to write all the history parts?
4. Can I do this without constantly editing?
5. Can I write these in a text editor and go back to insert the photos and do the page layouts later?

It’s a new challenge for me for NaNo this year. I’m sure it will work itself out in the end.

Have you ever participated in NaNoWriMo, or considered it?