At some point everyone ponders what it is they want to do and accomplish. I'm not talking about career-wise either. I mean the "bucket-list".
A Bucket-list, in case you didn't see the likewise named movie, is simply a list of things you want to do before you die.
It was actually a class project my senior-year of high school to list out the top ten things we wanted to accomplish. These were supposed to be very, very long-term goals.
Mine included a ton of random things varying from overcoming stage-fright to a few extreme sports challenges. In the middle of my list was to write a novel.
This is actually a fairly common goal. Everyone seems to have a story in their head, but only a handful sit down to actually write it out. Turns out I have around a dozen ideas floating around the ol' cerebellum at any given time. But it wasn't until three years ago that I sat down to actually pen out my first novel.
It took the inspiration and accountability of NaNoWriMo to get my butt in gear. NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is a "contest" of sorts that asks aspiring authors to gather around the warm inspirational light of a monitor every November and write a 50,000+ word work.
There are no guidelines as far as genre, plot, character development, etc. The only requirement is that your final product is to have 50,000 words on paper by the end of November.
I entered. I finished. I felt good.
That first step of putting the ink on a page is the hard part. I followed a series of tips listed on the NaNoWriMo website to keep myself on track. The most effective one being: PEER-PRESSURE.
I told everyone I possibly could and even created a Facebook.com group to keep everyone updated on my word count and process. For a college age guy, there is nothing more inspiring than a barrage of hot girls and annoying guys asking you how much you've written, what it's about, and when can they get a copy. You want to flaunt your success in front of friends and enemies alike.
Chances are they have the same desire somewhere in them, not to write the next great American novel, but to entertain with a flight of fancy. After my first year, three friends who had kept up with my process signed up to do it themselves the following November.
It's October now, if you want to know more about NaNoWriMo read No Plot? No Problem! By Chris Baty, founder of NaNoWriMo and visit the official site.
Just step out there and do it. That'll be one more thing to check off of your Bucket-List..
