It’s November and if you are a writer or know one on social media, you may see this bizarre acronym bouncing around: NaNoWriMo. It has nothing to do with Pokémon or some new Crossfit-ish exercise craze. It’s short for National Novel Writing Month, which is every November. I bring it up, because about 10 years ago, NaNoWriMo convinced me I could be a bonafide writer.
In college I studied economics and political science and went on to successful careers in fundraising and sales, but from childhood, I wanted to be writer. There were a few things influencing my desire to tell stories. First and foremost was likely the shelves of books in my childhood home. My parents were always reading something. My stepmother had everything ever written by C.S. Lewis and my dad enjoyed reading to me, particularly if it was a novel he could get into. I was quite young when he read me The Hobbit — and not the kids version. He’s now 81 and he still reads voraciously. His father had a bookshelf behind his old Zenith floor model TV full of Louis L’Amour books, whose autobiography is the best book about reading and writing — and living — I’ve ever read (sorry Stephen King).
But the really odd thing that inspired me to write were fleeting portrayals of writers in film and television… the narrator in Stand By Me (played by Richard Dreyfus), Joan Wilder in Romancing the Stone, and yes, Doogie Howser with his cheesy summations at end of each schmaltzy episode. Something drew me to the portrayal of writers. I dabbled for nearly two decades in short stories, journals, and humor, but rarely finished, much less edited, a piece.
And then about 10 years ago I was in a friend’s clothing boutique where my future wife tried on countless outfits. She dashed in and out of the dressing room, slipping in and out of dresses, rarely managing to get the privacy curtains to close. (Seriously, it doesn’t matter if it’s Nordstrom or Goodwill, she’s suddenly tearing off clothes like she’s backstage at Fashion Week.) Then something — other than my new, nearly-naked girlfriend — caught my young eye. No Plot, No Problem, the book title declared. You see, the smart boutique owners always have a shelf of trinkets and oddities for guys like me to peruse so that we don't make shoppers uncomfortable with our awkward loitering.
This book changed my life.
No Plot, No Problem: A Low-stress, High-velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days by Chris Baty chronicles the birth of National Novel Writing Month through Chris and his friends’ commitment to putting down 50,000 words in 30 days in San Francisco back in the early 2000s. The original edition came out in 2006, and I can’t see that Chris Baty has actually published any actual novels, but he has certainly inspired thousands of others to do so. National Novel Writing Month is now internationally-known, has spawned a non-profit which fosters writing programs, and in 2016 had nearly 400,000 participants (Mr. Baty is forgiven if he hasn’t published the next Catcher in the Rye just yet).
I read the book and promptly forgot about it until 2012 when a former classmate — then a journalist at a small-town free weekly newspaper, now my editor at CL — became the local NaNoWriMo facilitator and encouraged me to participate. The book that came out of that first NaNoWriMo went from 50,000 words of novice novel-ing, to 125,000 words of great-story/ questionable-story-telling and was promptly filed away as a “learning experience.” But it not only laid the groundwork for what became my first published novel (have I mentioned my suspense/thriller The Grandfather Clock yet? It’s on Amazon).
Four years later, I’m a writer and that is it. I won’t rehash my backstory of health issues that ended my sales career prematurely. Now… I write. And I’m swinging big: Best Selling Novel or Bust, baby. And it all started with NaNoWriMo. Find your local group at their website (I’m in the South Pinellas group and so is my editor). It doesn’t matter if you’re starting late. It’s your book and it isn’t going to write itself. Don’t have a story idea? No outline? That’s OK… no plot, no problem.
This article appears in Nov 2-9, 2017.