Monday, October 22, 2012

CLEP In Relation To NaNo


know are stocking their cupboards with coffee, chocolate, and new pencils in preparation for NaNo (known to non-writers as November).  For those non-writers, NaNo is the time of year where writers—always a bit on the quirky side—go completely over the edge and attempt to write 50,000 words or a complete novel (whichever is longer) in thirty days.  Yes, I used to do this.  Yes, I won twice, and the last year, wrote over 100,000 words.  Then came Florida, a baby, Down syndrome, and Bad Stuff, and single mommyhood, and school and work…yeah.

Hard to believe that I wrote in one month more than I’ve written for the last three years.

Anyway, this time of year is a bit wistful now.  I still open all the NaNo updates which spatter my inbox, and I lurk the forums late at night when Hunter won’t sleep, and I watch everyone else get excited about words and writing and 30 days of crazy comradeship and I miss those days…

But I didn’t intend this post to be an melancholy reflection on the past, but a hopeful prediction for the future, and a giggle for today.  For the future, I’ve decided this year that I will do NaNo.  No, I’m not going to try to write a novel.  I’m not even going to set a word count goal.  What I am going to do is resolve to write something every.single.day for thirty days.  No excuses.  It doesn’t have to be fiction.  Most of it won’t be, I expect.  But it has to be creative writing of some sort, and it has to be every day.  And now I’ve committed it to blogosphere and I would love to be nagged at for the duration of the MonthOfCrazy.

And for the giggle…today I took my College Composition CLEP exam.  I was horribly underprepared due to the insanity that has been October, and I didn’t realize until last week that I had to write two essays, with only 30 minutes for each.  I had only one day to practice, and only time for two essays. 

The first one was a disaster.  I barely finished it in the time restraint, and it was full of grammar and spelling errors and confusing verbage of all sorts. I knew it wouldn’t even pass.

I sat down and had a quiet panic attack.  Then suddenly the 30 rang a bell.  This is just like NaNo!  As a quick insert here—everyone does NaNo in a different way, but my preferred method is to write out a very detailed outline, and then literally flesh out the outline.  So, that’s literally what I did today.  I NaNo-ed my way through my two essays.  And although I made two stupid mistakes in structure (forgot to indent the first one and forgot APA citing format on the second) I think overall the essays turned out very well. Perhaps it’s just the 4 hours of sleep I’m running on, but I think it’s absolutely hilarious and not a little bit plain and simple awesome that I NaNo-ed a test.

So in conclusion to this very jumbled post…to all those of you who are putting the finishing touches on your NaNo preparation, GO GET THOSE WORDS!  And please comment and let me know what your November plans are!

4 comments:

  1. Oh, I hate and despise writing timed essays... love how you did yours though - that is awesome! :D

    That is a great idea for November, too! I should think about trying something like that... NANO is something I've always wanted to do, and always something I thought I was too busy for, until the next year, when I would realize that I hadn't known what busy was the year before. :P lol

    I hope it works out for you and you do end up with something written every day! Enjoy it! :D

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    1. NaNo is AWESOME. If you do decide to set your own goal, let me know please!!!!

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  2. You are so awesome, Nina! You inspire me! Greatly!

    I'm doing NaNo this year, too! *high-five* I'm full of anticipation for the month, wondering what it will be like with only a third of my novel thought out, and I'm wondering if I'm slightly crazy writing about something I know absolutely nothing about. :) But! Onward and upward!

    Love you, darling! Praying for you always!

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    1. Thank you, dear heart - the same to you!

      Yay! You are doing NaNo again! What are you writing about??? I want full details!

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