Write or Die: NaNoWriMo 2011

I haven’t been very creative as of late.

My blog has shriveled to a post a week, I have not committed myself to daily creative time, and my energy has been slowly flagging as the temperatures dip lower and lower here in NYC.

So you may be wondering how I will possibly write 50,000 words for National Novel Writing Month (NaNo) this year. And to that I say: you and I both! But I think that giving myself a good kick in the pants because of a formal event might be a good start to getting back towards normalcy. If there was ever a jumpstart to writing, NaNo would be that spark. And so, today, off I go into the vast wilderness that is novel-writing. Ideas after the jump!

This year, I’m going to be doing an alternative version of NaNo, pressing for 80,000 words to round out the novel that I started during Camp NaNoWriMo (a summer version of this crazy hoopla) but didn’t actually get around to finishing. I justify to myself that since I’m aiming for a goal higher than 50,000 words (essentially writing 1.5 novels this month) and because the novel is set up as a series of vignettes that come together in the end, that this is an acceptable alteration. My other defense? Just saying “to heck with ya!” to all the NaNoWriMo purists.

My idea remains the same, to write my tour de force on the lives of Bengali women living in Bangladesh and in the United States, and all their trials and travails. I’ve always had this novel in me, but now is really the time when it needs to be put to paper and made real.

Wish me luck, all ye writers and non-writers! This dense wilderness cannot be crossed without your support.