IWSG Day, NaNoWriMo & Why I Write

Happy IWSG Day! 2020 is almost at an end and we’re still together, providing support, personal and writerly. Thanks for bringing this community together goes to ninja extraordinaire Alex Cavanaugh.

The awesome co-hosts for the November 4th posting of the IWSG are: Jemi Fraser, Kim Lajevardi, L.G Keltner, Tyrean Martinson, and Rachna Chhabria!

Interested in joining us? Click on the badge above. Our Twitter hashtag and handle are #IWSG and @TheIWSG. 

So what’s going on with me this month?

Well it’s NaNoWriMo and as of now my current word count is 2,197 words. Created my own word count tracker calendar in Google sheets. It’s my hope the calendar will keep me moving and pushing forward to reach my goal. 

I’ve set my own word count goal of 30k and stretched the time frame to reach my goal from November 1st to December 31st. My aim is to finally complete my urban fantasy by the end of the year.

Which brings me to today’s question.

Albert Camus once said, “The purpose of a writer is to keep civilization from destroying itself.” Flanner O’Conner said, “I write to discover what I know.” Authors across time and distance have had many reasons to write. Why do you write what you write?

Well, Maya Angelou once said, “There is no greater agony than bearing an untold story inside you.” I’ve been a bookworm since around the first grade. It wasn’t long until I started writing stories of my own. 

Since I was a young child I knew that I wanted to become a published author. But a teacher’s comment about the profession caused me to detour from that dream. And I detoured once again because of adulting. It wasn’t until a few years when my job relocated to a new city when I found my path back to writing again. I wanted to write. Have my work published and read by others. And stories have been flooding my mind. Filling my documents and folders ever since. Waiting to be told.

To provide accountability to those stories I decided to take part in NaNoWriMo. My first NaNo novel was a young adult fantasy in 2013. I’ve only skipped NaNoWriMo once in 2014 to take part in National Nonfiction Writing Month (NaNonFiWriMo).

Why? Because I write what I want to write so that it doesn’t stay hidden inside me. I write what I write because I want my stories read. Enjoyed, found entertaining and moving. I write what I write because, despite the times when writing becomes taxing, I do enjoy it.

So I write and take part in NaNoWrimo to turn my intangible dreams into tangible reality.

Why do you write what you write? Are you taking part in NaNoWriMo? Have any writing goals you wish to accomplish by the end of the year?