NaNoWriMo: Or Why to Write a Novel in one Month

Thinking back to my youth, I have always enjoyed telling stories. My father found my consistently active imagination (he would have called it overactive) annoying. I was that weird kid who was perfectly content to sit there, alone, and just imagine things. I would play all sorts of events and stories in my mind. In many of the stories I told in my head, I was often the hero, while other times I was the third person observer, witnessing the heroism and triumph of imagined characters as they won out over the evils that beset them.

As I moved through school, this practiced ability to tell stories paid off in spades. In almost any class in which I was required to write some sort of essay, these came fairly easily to me. In college, I was able to ace more than one class on my ability to think creatively and spin out words that would not only appease my professors, but often pleased them. During this time, I remember having a red covered, five subject notebook that I started writing my first book in. By hand. It was the late 90s/early 2000s. I didn’t have a laptop. I was a poor college student getting ready to take out unholy amounts of student loans to go to medical school.

Still, something about that act of story creation fascinated me. Then life hit me, like a massive semi truck barreling uncontrolled down the too-steep road. Between just trying to survive medical school and then a six-year surgical residency, being creative sort of got squashed. And I think that might be putting it too kindly. The truth is, a career in medicine wants nothing more than to utterly crush you, chew you up as part of the machine, and then discard you when your usefulness is spent.

I entered the world of private practice medicine, and it was more of the same. Busy days, short nights, lots of weekends of work. This isn't about the travails of a career in medicine, so I won't belabor the point. It is sufficient to note that creative exercises took a back seat to the trials of being a practicing surgeon. That machine constantly reared its hideous head, demanding more. Always more. Never satisfied.

I had to make changes, if I was going to have any hope of making it through as more than a shell of myself. One of those changes, was a re-realization of just how important it was for me to create something. Anything.

Humanity has always told stories. There are a multitude of reasons behind it, and I won't feign to have the anthropological or sociological knowledge to really dive into it. But we have. We tell stories. To each other, to our children, to ourselves. Entire industries exist simply to tell stories. We are naturally creative creatures, to the point that I believe creativity is something that more people have than don't, some of us just get it beat out of us at an early enough age to think we aren't.

Imagination is one of the concepts, the aspects of being human that make us unique in the known universe. Our ability to invent new stories, ideas, sets us apart. Over the years, I have found that to be an incredibly important part of my life. And so, in 2022 and again in 2023, I decided to challenge that creative drive.

By writing a book.

Image courtesy DALL-E

I had long been aware of NaNoWriMo, and made plenty of excuses as to why I couldn't participate. But 2022 was the year that all changed. I committed to myself, and much to the chagrin of those around me, to anyone who would listen, that I was finally going to write a book.

For those not familiar with National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), the idea is that you set yourself the goal of writing 1,667 words every day, for 30 days, and at the end of it you have a roughly 50,000 (200 pages) novella written. The organization has a large amount of support for those who participate, with local/regional groups that have regular meetings, write-ins, and other activities to support each other as we all undertake this sort of crazy idea.

It was inspiring. This is something that thousands of people participate in. I wasn't alone. In fact, even in my little corner of Southern Idaho, there were/are many who participate in this every year.

I threw my hat in the ring. I wrote. Some days, it was quite a bit more than the 1,667 words. Some days, if I was ahead in my overall total, I would write fewer. But I set aside time every day to write. To create.

The first years, I was very much a pantser. That is, someone who writes by the seat of their pants. I had the big picture idea, and then just sat down to start writing. Last year, I spent much of October developing my idea more, but still didn't have everything detailed out before I started writing. Both approaches had their advantages, but one of the most interesting things I discovered through the process was that these ideas, well, they were alive.

I could start a chapter and by the end have an entire 1,000+ word scene that I never thought of before the writing started. As I developed my characters, I found things in them that I hadn't planned on, things that surprised even me, their creator. The story took right angles when I had planning gentle curves. And in one case in particular, the story ended up being just a fraction of what I had planned on, as it had grown to the point that it was much larger than the original idea.

At times, these changes were frustrating. But far more often, they were exciting, invigorating. And they were incredibly fulfilling.

That is, for me, the main reason to create. I love being a surgeon. I hate, hate, hate all the bullshit that comes with practicing medicine. The electronic "paperwork", the administrative headaches, dealing with people who tell you how to do your job, despite the fact that if they ever tried, they would be arrested and taken to jail. All of that makes those superfluous parts of medicine, for me at least, put a hard limit on just how much joy and fulfillment I derive from my job.

But creating something new? Something interesting and exciting (even if just to me)? Now that fulfills me. It recharges me. It breathes life back into the husk that practicing medicine leaves when it is done.

It makes me want to live again.

And so, I will be participating in NaNoWriMo every year that I possibly can. Because creating IS life.