Just over a decade ago, I had never thought about writing a novel. As someone who had only written short stories up to that point, something like a novel felt so big and insurmountable to me. Then, talking with my cousin at Thanksgiving, I learned about National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short). Since then, I have participated and won the challenge 12 times in a row and am now nine years into my role as a Municipal Liaison (ML) for my local region. I almost exclusively write the first drafts of my novels during this annual challenge, and I have published at least five manuscripts that started out as a flurry of late nights writing in November.
Before we continue, let me set the stage by answering the first question many people have: what is NaNoWriMo? Founded in 1999, the NaNoWriMo challenge is to write 50,000 words of a first draft of a new novel in the 30 days...
Congratulations! Admitting that you want to be a writer is the first step in achieving that goal. “But . . .” I hear you hesitate, “what does being a ‘writer’ even mean?” Plenty of people have their definitions for the term, but in its simplest form, being a writer means that you write. Simple, no? Some of the complexity of the term “writer” comes when people make the transition to “author,” since being an author usually means you’ve published something (be it self-published or traditionally published). I consider myself an author because I have written books and published them. Others might disagree, since the process of being traditionally published is a lot more involved (and complicated). Either way, we’re getting ahead of ourselves a bit. Let’s start on the ground floor: being a writer.
Being a writer simply means that you write.
If all it takes to be a writer is to write something, then you could be a writer just by writing...
