To many, November means different things: turkey and red leaves and Pumpkin Spice EVERYTHING. For me, it means two things; my mom’s great green jello at Thanksgiving and National Novel Writing Month.

National Novel Writing Month, frequently referred to as NaNoWriMo, is a popular, multinational endeavor that encourages novelists to write 50,000 words of a novel in November. NaNoWriMo is done by people of all ages, whether teenagers or published adults.

While the total word count is huge, it works out to 1,677 words a day, which isn’t a lot – until you factor in homework, social life, school, sleep (who needs that?) and any other obstacles life may deign to punch you in the face with. 

This was my second year doing NaNo, and it was certainly easier the second time around, with my discovery of door locking, duct tape (my lock was broken for awhile) and an obscene amount of caffeine. Although I did have to write nearly 22,000 words on the last day (my fingers still hurt), I finished this year, which is a major leg up from 11k last year. This year’s novel was “All the White Horses,” in which I attempted a deconstruction of frequently-seen dystopia/superhero tropes, while maintaining a theme of hope and heroism to combat the “darker and grittier” trend in the superhero/mutant genres.

I couldn’t have done it without the NaNo community, which is huge, with many Twitter accounts and thriving forums for things like Plot Doctoring and World Building and soundtracks for writing. People announcing their win on Twitter were frequently flooded with congratulations, and those such as myself who tweeted about exactly how much we had to write on the last day (21,747 words in my case) were quickly filled with encouragement.

Novelling (that’s a verb, I promise) while doing homework and maintaining a social life was difficult, but it was rewarding. I would tell myself while studying or doing homework, “Another 10 minutes and you can write 500 words,” or “Finish this worksheet and you can write another 200.” It was a reward when I thought my brain might explode. With social events, it was almost the opposite:  1,000 words before I could attend a football game, 2,000 to go to the movies, 500 to take a half hour break and read.

Writing in small bursts, I’ve discovered, is a lot easier than four hours in a row. It took me about 20 days to figure that out.

I still spent 22 hours writing on the last day. I don’t actually ever learn.

All in all, I ended the month with a healthy novel and in the negatives in sleep. Although the experience was taxing and there were several nights I could hardly muster 100 words, it was fun. So if you’d like to foster a caffeine addiction next November, give it a try.