The Titanic Was a Thing and A Movie Theater Is a Place.

I wasn’t going to do NaNoWriMo this year. I had a long list of perfectly good reasons not to do NaNoWriMo this year:

• Writing/editing 1 essay a week for submissions
• Editing two novels
• Updating this blog twice a week
• Keeping up with the Patreon Page
• Working full time
• Running a Youth Group twice a month (which requires way more planning and organization than one would think!)
• Running a weekly teen writing workshop
• OH and maybe some personal time to spend with The Mr, our dogs, our friends and maybe sleeping sometimes too?

See? Those are all really good reasons not to do NaNoWriMo.

And I was also feeling really comfortable with this decision. I wished all my friends who had decided to dive in good luck and told them that I was cheering them on.

But I had one friend who decided to email me. On November 1st:

Subject: NaNoWriMo

Body: I’ll race you to the 50k

And I responded with my whole “Oh, I’m not doing NaNo this year because <see reasons above>, but good luck!”

And he was all “Hey, we all have shit to do. Here’s my laundry list of reasons why I shouldn’t be writing a novel this month either.” And then he essentially was like “do it anyway.” I’m totally paraphrasing here, but that’s basically what he said.

And I was all “Even if I could, I don’t have an idea! I don’t even have a character in mind that I could just start following around in my brain!”

But then I talked to another friend – a friend you only talk to when you want to be talked into writing – and she gave me a pretty great idea…

So suddenly I had an idea… and a laundry list of reasons still not to write the book… that I decided to ignore. Not ignore, exactly because I’m still doing all of those things… I just decided to add to it? So now here I am, waking up every day at 5am to put words onto the vomit draft of a new novel. And one of the best things is that I’ve got this weird husband who was all “Alright. Let’s do this.” instead of being all “EMELIE WHY?” For example:

As The Mr was using the bathroom last night, I paced around right outside the door, psyching myself up for #nanowrimo. “I need you to remind me throughout this month that now is not the time to fall down a rabbit hole researching the Titanic or 1930s movie theaters in America – even though they may be relevant to the plot! NOW IS THE TIME TO JUST WRITE. So, when I start ‘doing research’ for this book, STOP ME.” This morning the alarm went off at 5am and I began writing from bed. When I came out, I found that The Mr had cleaned off my desk and updated its sign. Husband of the bloody year. #amwriting #nanowrimo2017

A post shared by Emelie Samuelson (@awkwardlyaliveblog) on Nov 2, 2017 at 4:54am PDT

So as of this blog post on November 3rd I am 2,201 words into a strange novel. And I can’t wait to see where it’s headed.

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? Buddy me so that we can support each other.

And now, for some business:

I’ll be performing at this open mic night on Saturday Night (November 4th) with some really amazing people. All proceeds go to the Loaves and Fishes Soup Kitchen in New Milford, CT. If you’re able to make it, please do! I’m reading one of my most awkward pieces I’ve ever written, and everyone else will be reading really incredible stuff, so it should be a good time for us all.

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