National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) starts in two days. It’s a writing event for people all over the world who want to draft a novel. To “win” NaNoWriMo, you must write 50,000 words (or about 1,667 words per day) during the month of November. Every year I don’t participate, I feel some FOMO.

In 2018, I “won” NaNoWriMo when I fast drafted my memoir, the one still languishing in the cloud. It has yet to find its form. I “won” again in 2019 when I drafted a historical fiction/romance that has gone through one editing round. I would get up at 4 AM and write for a half hour before my morning commute. I had no preconceived notion of what to write when I awoke, but the story magically unfolded under my fingers.

Pandemic year 2020 brought lots of changes but when November rolled around, I was psyched for another win. I had the germ of a story and looked forward to how the story would unfold. Like 2019, I woke up at zero-dark-thirty excited to write before work.

During the presidential election month, the story took me to a very dark fictional place I was unwilling to explore. It freaked me out so much, I scheduled an appointment with my therapist, thinking maybe something bad had happened to me that I’d repressed. She relieved my mind and said, “Maybe something that needed to be said was coming through you.” Made sense, but to this day, I haven’t looked back on the 11,000+ words I wrote.

After retirement in 2021, November was all about closing and renovating our new home in Tucson. Last November I was in the North Dakota hospital when my grandbaby was born on the 10th…no time for writing. This year we’re traveling back there to celebrate her first birthday.

I hope to get a little writing done, but the month of November is no longer just about writing. It’s about celebrating my daughter and her daughter…and hopefully I’ll put a few words on the page. I’ll consider that a win!