It’s National Novel Writing Month and I don’t know what I’m doing. Well, that’s not entirely true. I know I’m writing a novel. I even know what novel I’m writing. In fact, I’ve already started, not just planning, but writing. Because, you see, NaNoWriMo wasn’t the plan. Writing a novel was the plan, a long gestating, slowly marinating plan. I’ve had a mild to middlingly successful year writing short stories, stories that became progressively longer and longer. A novel was the next logical step. NaNoWriMo was an accident of the calendar.
This puts me in a slightly odd position. I’ve never written a novel before, although I started one once upon a time. I’ve never done NaNoWriMo before. That isn’t the odd part. The odd part is I’m slightly out of sync. I’m also slightly behind. I’m 3 days behind schedule and I haven’t even started NaNoWriMo yet. This doesn’t bode well. It’s also why I’m even doing this. Pressure. Productivity pressure. Something I can lack. Something many writers can lack. After all, if I coincidently start writing my first novel at around the same time thousands of others are, and there’s a community for us writers/ escaped inmates, why not take advantage.
So, 50,000 words in November plus the 8000 or so I’ve managed the past week and a half. Seems doable. I say now. But then, I am the crazy person who wants to write for a living and the key part of writing is writing, and writing consistently. I’ve been more consistent this year than I’ve ever been, but I need to be more so. So that’s how I intend to treat this and all future NaNoWriMos—as training, as a career step of some kind.
What could possibly go wrong?
Antonio Urias 
Take advantage of the coincidence. If thousands of other authors are going to give you encouragement, it can’t hurt.