Monday, October 31, 2011

A realistic NaNoWriMo goal?

Late last night, in a fit of exhausted inspiration, I signed up for NaNoWriMo, even though I questioned recently whether I should attempt it again.

This year I am being realistic—that is, not very ambitious, since it doesn't look like I'm going to be able to carve out enough time this week to start it off well.

The working title of my forthcoming work: (NaNoWriMo insists that you provide a novel title in order to register): Whatever I Can Think of to Write in Any Given Moment.

The genre: Memoir/Stream of consciousness (a genre I may have made up since I had to write it in under the category of "Other").

I'm aiming for 10,000 words this year, one-fifth of the official NaNoWriMo goal, or around 350 words a day (not the 1,667 words that the contest suggests). I've decided to write about the people and moments I've wanted to recall over the years, to remember them more vividly, to recreate and then ameliorate the past. This may only last through the first five days before I go on to something else I've always meant to do.

So I say am trying to be realistic, but I confess there's some tiny glimmer of hope inside me that Whatever I Can Think of to Write in Any Given Moment eventually will be considered a ground-breaking, creative masterpiece marking a new and unforeseen category of memoir-ish fiction.

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