On October 31st, I signed up for NaNoWriMo, a challenge to write a novel in 30 days (the month of November). I have not done very well at getting to 50,000 words, but I’ve done well in getting off the ground. To me, NaNoWriMo wasn’t so much for the “in-a-month” aspect as much as the “getting-started”.

As it stands right now, I’m just shy of 3,000 words, quite a ways from my 50,000 goal. It’s been 26 days. It’s been a mix of client work, speaking at a conference and school that has kept me behind on my writing. I was stuck for the first two-and-a-half weeks of the month, never getting much farther than 1000 words.

But then I finished my presentation, and I had one huge task off of my todo list. Which meant: writing time.

I scratched my original novel idea (as it was going nowhere), and started anew. In 45 minutes, I write more of my new book than I had written in three weeks in my old one.

I have three days to write just over 47,000 words. it’s not going to happen, I can tell you that much, but what it did do was get me started.

Sure, I won’t finish by the end of the month, but the fact that I have two full chapters of my novel finished, and I have a solid idea and plot in place is farther that I’ve ever gotten before.

For a while now, I’ve wanted to write a novel, but I could never find the motivation, nor find a good idea. Well, NaNoWriMo has both given me the inspiration and motivation to start writing, and now here I am. I’ve written more words in a single document than any other blog post or composition that I’ve written.

So… What does this mean? Well, for starters, I have a book idea, and I’m already a good ways into it. It also is a good lesson: sometimes a little inspiration can change a person’s life, and that’s sure happened for me.

NaNoWriMo has changed a large part of my life. I finding it much easier to write longer compositions now that I’ve had the experience of writing something longer than 1500 words. 300 words? Easy. 500 words? Piece of cake.

Accepting the challenge of a novel in 30 days wasn’t really for the contest, but more for the inspiration. I knew that I needed the motivation to get started, and I knew that I probably wouldn’t finish in 30 days.

And although I didn’t finish in 30 days, I plan to finish. It may take me 60 days, or it may take me a couple more months, but I will finish. Because now that I have a start, I can just keep going. Starting is the most difficult part, and now that the start is done, the rest of the novel is just flowing out.

My personal goal is to finish by the end of the year. If I can have a rough draft done by end-2011, I will be happy. Once the rough draft is done, the hardest part is over, and all I have to do is edit, revise and rewrite parts to get the novel to exactly how I want it.

Publishing is another story. But I’ll save that for when I actually finish the novel.