NaNoWriMo

Many of you may have read my blog post title and have no idea what it means. Maybe you thought I was writing in some kind of secret code. In some ways I am. This is a term writers, esp fiction writers, know well. It stands for National Novel Write Month. Every November fiction writers j
oin this formal joint effort to get a new novel written or to make serious progress on a novel they have been working on.


I have never participated in NaNoWriMo and I am not this
year either, not formally anyway. Those who do participate work at writing as many words per day as they can during this month. There are goals and requirement for those who participate but as an almost exclusive nonfiction writer, I have never been motivated to participate. And like I said, I am not participating this year either, at least not formally. But coincidently, I have started on my next novel and have written over 8,000 words on it so far. Maybe I should have joined.

My sweet mother passed away suddenly last August. I had seen her just two weeks before she died  at a family reunion. During that time she encouraged me to write my Nigerian brother, Abel's, story in a fiction-based-on-fact similar to The Whisper of the Palms, the fiction I released in 2016 about her and my dad. Abel's is a story I have thought about writing for a long time but Mom's encouragement to do so, followed so closely by her death has tugged at my heart to get started. So, I may not be as disciplined about it as I would if I had joined NaNoWriMo, but I am working on it and enjoying the adventure of writing another novel. I have no idea when I'll have it finished (certainly not by the end of November) but that goal is 8,000 words closer now, at least.

*The picture at the top of this post is my brother, Abel at about 14 years old carrying a preschool missionary kid (MK) in a basket on his head.