Nano Guest: Ami Hawkins

Welcome to Ami Hawkins, my youngest Nanowrimo guest this year! Ami is also the writer and performer of the beautiful acoustic guitar music in my Rehearsal trailer.

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NaNoWriMo = Total Craziness

The two things people ask me when I tell them that I’m trying to write a novel are ‘What is NaNoWriMo?’ and ‘Are you freaking crazy?’. Crazy? Maybe a little. I thought I was crazy the first time I tried it in 2005, but people don’t understand it until they try it. I mean, trying to write fifty thousand words in thirty days is enough to warrant the ‘crazy’ comment, but when you finally reach that ‘unreachable’ goal it makes everything worth it.

The first time I tried to write a ‘novel’, if that is even what you’d call it, I typed maybe 15,000 words and only barely finished six badly written chapters. The next year I vowed I would do better. Looking back at that attempt now, it makes me both cringe and laugh. What else could you do but laugh when you realize that in order to get the 15,000 words, you spaced out compound words to make them into two separate words, and tossed a couple of essays you had written in English class that semester into the story pretending that it was the main character that had written them herself. Sad. Just sad.

I have been a participant in NaNoWriMo since then, each year getting closer and closer to that seemingly unreachable goal, and each year bettering myself as a writer. Now, I don’t write to sell books or to get famous or anything like that. I write for my own enjoyment, because I feel like I have a story to tell. I don’t want to be one of these people that writes a half thought out book just to try to make a name for myself. I want to make sure that what I write is reader-worthy, which is why I keep editing the novel I’m working on now. Although mostly it’s because I’m afraid my characters will climb out of my head at night and strangle me if I don’t continue working to make a good storyline…

To those who call us NaNo-er’s crazy, I say give it a chance. You’d be surprised at how quickly you become bitten by the bug. I was. Now I can’t imagine going a year without the caffeine headaches and late nights scrambling at the last minute trying to finish my goal. This is the third time I’ve reached that unreachable goal, this time ahead of schedule, and I think that this is the best thing I’ve written yet. I still revisit those old characters with their choppy sentences and wrecked plot lines from time to time. It pushes me forward, not to mention gives me a good laugh now and then.

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Thank you, Ami! (She's out working today but will be back later to come find your comments.)
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