December is here, the final stretch of the year. You know what that means? NaNoWriMo just wrapped up! For those who are unaware, NaNoWriMo is a yearly writing exercise from November 1st to the 30th where one tries to write 50,000 words of a novel. In April and July, there is also Camp NaNoWriMo where one sets their own word goal. Although I have never participated in the April or July events, I regularly attempt the 50k challenge. I first discovered NaNoWriMo in my later high school years, but I only started taking a serious step toward reaching the goal in 2013. Out of the last nine projects, I have reached the 50k word goal twice: in 2013 with a regrettable story about a serial killer (because edgy), and in 2014 with a YA story called Ghost. With both, I barely passed the mile marker, but I have always been proud of that progress. I came close in 2015 with a sci-fi/fantasy project based on the first Dungeons & Dragons campaign I ran, getting to just a hair over 32.5k words. Ever since, the most I have achieved has been just slightly over 20,000 words, of which most had likely already been written beforehand. (I was a rebel that year.)
For this year’s project, I ended with a little under 10k words. On my social media platforms (which you should totally follow me on but it’s no biggie if you don’t), I announced at the beginning of the month that I would be working on the first Rokkoh novel. I was so excited to start working on it that I put a hold on the Rokkoh novella I had been working on, and I also made a neat wallpaper/cover art for the novel. I even scheduled vacation time from work each week so I could dedicate as much time to writing as possible.
Clearly, the extra time didn’t help much. Being a creature of habit, I ended up using a vast majority of my free time focusing on other things. I had the best intentions, of course, but more days than not I found myself distracted by YouTube or Twitch. This has been a great learning experience, because now I know that visual entertainment, even something meant to be in the background, will likely draw my attention away from whatever story I am trying to work on.
That said, I am still proud of what I have written. The first several days were spent working on a script for a play that would feature later on in the novel. I had never written a proper script before (the attempts to write movie scripts in my teen years do not count), and the experience was interesting to say the least. I may post it here someday, if there is any interest.
So NaNoWriMo 2021 was kind of a bust, but any progress is good progress. Thanks to NaNoWriMo, I have roughly 10,000 words less to write for Rokkoh’s first proper novel. Once I complete the new novella, my intentions are to get back to work on the novel. Until then, enjoy the wallpaper I made for the novel!
Tyler Gohde 