NaNoWriMo 2.0

This year is my second attempt at NaNoWriMo. 

Last year, I went all in and made 50,000 words my goal.  It was crazy, but I did it. 

Last year at this time I was teaching "The Great Gatsby", a book that I have ready maybe 15 times and had taught three or four times before.  It's not that I didn't have work to do to prepare for the lessons that I was teaching, I just happened to be teaching something that I knew pretty well. 

Last year, I wrote from an outline that I had been working on off and on for over two years. 

Let's just say that 50,000 words came pretty easy and the time, nearly two hours a day, was available for writing.

This year, I gave myself permission to have a YWP (Young Writer's Project) goal of 20,000.  The YWP is the student version of NaNoWriMo and it is friendly to teachers who want to use it in the school day.  This year 20,000 words is taking more dicipline that 50,000 words took last year.  I have fallen behind my daily goals several times and I've had to really be strict with myself about being on task this last week.

This year I am teaching two different curriculum that have never been taught before.  I am using materials that I have never used in the classroom.  I am giving tests that are newly designed to reflect the newly developed curriculum.  I spend hours looking for materials, teaching aids, and self-study resources for my students. 

Let's say that this year I don't really feel like the expert that I am suppose to be when I teach my classes.  Instead of being able to pull out lessons from my magic drawer of previously tested and proven materials, I am struggling to stay three or four days ahead of what my students are learning today. 

This year I look at my NaNoWriMo counter and I think, "What's wrong with me? Why are you struggling so hard with a goal that is less than half of what you finished last year?"

Then I remember all of the other words that I write in a day: the emails, the worksheets, the blog entries for the class blog, and the endless quizzes and tests.  I know that if I were to count all of these words, I would have well over the 50,000 word mark already this month.

I'm not just spending two hours writing a day writing...  I'm spending closer to three and a half hours a day writing, I'm just not writing fiction.

This makes me feel a little bit better about my word count.  Not all the way better, but a little bit.

I'm going to make it to my 20,000 word goal.  As of today, I've got 13,545 words, so I've got about 6,500 left to go.  I can do that in the last seven days.  I know I can.

Comments

  1. I'd say you're ahead on both counts: planning for school AND NaNoWriMo. If you're staying 3-4 days ahead of the students, you're well ahead of where I often was when I was teaching high school And you've almost made it to 20,000 words! That's a huge number of words to write with a full time job and a life. I'm sure you'll make it to 20,000 by the end of the month. You can do it!

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