NaNoWriMo!

For as long as I can remember, I’ve imagined myself becoming a “real” writer. I’ve always had a fascination with combinations of words, with the magic of perfect sentences, with the way stories work. Though I have pursued a career in engineering (and have found that such a career is a good match for my personality and my skill set), seeing something of my own in print – a real, live novel written by yours truly – has been a dream since I was small.

I’ve questioned this dream multiple times. Maybe this isn’t for me. Maybe I don’t have what it takes. After all, writing isn’t a compulsive need for me, as it is for some. I don’t write consistently. I haven’t tried my hand at fiction for months, if not years. Characters don’t show up in my mind, talking to me, telling me how things should go. I don’t have notebooks full of plot ideas or personality sketches. I’m not one of those with voluminous output – I’ve never written anything longer than a short story, and it’s likely been ten years or more since I actually completed one of those.

Well, until now, that is. Because I’m realizing this dream will never be anything more than a dream unless I decide to make it something more. It’s time to bite the bullet, and to try to actually crank out a novel, and so I’m joining some 150,000+ other crazy people and committing to NaNoWriMo this year.

I’ll have to turn off the perfectionist editor inside of me and just write. If I finish, I’ll have a work that will require heavy editing. It will almost certainly not ever be printed, and very few people will likely ever read it. But it will be a novel, and it will be mine.

Here’s to pursuing dreams.

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