2018 Nanowrimo attempt

Reading Time: 2 minutes
As an introvert, I have a tendency to listen and daydream rather than talk. It is for this reason that the Nanowrimo challenge is an interesting one. It encourages me to be verbose, to use more words than I would usually use. It also forces me to find 1667 words of inspiration on a daily basis. This is a challenge. When you’re inspired it can take about an hour and a half to two hours depending on typing speed or it can be split into chunks.

Current nanowrimo progress

This morning I wrote a draft about the routes you can cycle if you go west from Nyon and tomorrow I plan to do the same but for routes that go east. When I format them as blog posts I will post them. It will provide you with a more in-depth and informed look at cycling opportunities if you’re looking to cycle between Geneva and Nyon.

You can write about anything during the Nanowrimo attempt. You can write fiction or fact, love letters or blog posts, or anything. The principal goal is to get in the habit of writing every single day, and of not worrying about editing and post-processing until December and beyond.  A few years ago I managed to write a 50,000-word fiction piece and never found the courage to read it. It’s a challenge to write, especially when you force yourself to keep going despite your instinct telling you that what you’re writing is rubbish.

You can look at it another way. You can look at writing like taking pictures or taking video. You’re not taking that picture or that video sequence because you love it, you’re taking it because when it comes to the editing phase you want to have a number of choices and opportunities. You want to get rid of 90 per cent of the content and just keep the good stuff.    This writing month is fun. It’s enjoyable to write, and imagine, and as you imagine write what you are visualising, until inspiration breaks, and you need to walk around, do something different for a while, and then come back and write some more. It is pleasurable.

There is also the added dimension that you can meet other people who are doing the same thing. There are events in Lausanne and Zurich this weekend, so if you want to be with people staring at their laptops rather than their phones this is a good opportunity. ? Co-working without the financial gain.

There is another dimension to this. I want to broaden my work opportunities and one way to do this is to demonstrate that I have the ability to write well and to be concise and to write in an interesting manner. I can’t prove that with a tweet or a facebook post but if I blog frequently, and I improve my writing ability then I have more of a leg to stand on.

We’ll see what I find inspiration to write about over the coming 30 days. Now to see if I can find the motivation to experience traffic to go climbing indoors this evening.