Why I Sign Up For NaNoWriMo

I sign up for NaNo because it gets me writing three to five thousand words a day, and they're all on a brand new manuscript. If you've been getting lost in your life, going in circles, trying to balance all of your growing responsibilities (like me), then maybe NaNo is for you what it is for me: a wake-up call. NaNo brings me back into sync with my goals. It reminds me that I am a writer who needs to write everyday. That's sometimes difficult when we start revising one WIP, reading WIPs for others, critiquing, reviewing, blogging, researching, marketing, querying, etc. Our stories can get lost, or we can get lost. We can even start to lose faith in ourselves and in our work. This year I'm pantsing it. Normally, I'm a strict outliner who plots and scene lists. The problem with that occurs when I begin to create characters and they don't feel real. Pantsing it this year is helping to reveal my characters, their motivations, and their methodologies. To tell you the truth, I'm loving it. A good, fast write is worth the discovery. I do have a basic plot in my mind, and I'm following a scant storyline, but overall I feel free--free to write whatever I want, knowing no one but me will ever see this ms. After NaNo, if I still like my plot, and if I've fallen in love with my characters, then I can outline and scene list in detail, knowing that I've got something worth spending hours and hours on. In the meantime, the NaNo investment of two hours a day, maybe three, Monday to Friday (I'll finish before Thanksgiving), totals out to about ten to fifteen days--well worth the endeavor. Beyond that, I hope to continue the NaNo pattern and the NaNo habit. And that's what being a writer is all about, isn't it? The NaNo kick in the pants HABIT.