Evon Davis

On Monday morning I needed to write 4,981 words for NaNoWriMo by midnight to get caught up. I started by brainstorming the elements of each stage for my character. For example, I asked myself, What are the elements of her ordinary world? I came up with a list of 15 things that describe my character in her ordinary world. So as I’m writing her ordinary world, I need to make sure I show all of these elements.

I also came up with an idea I call “Traveling NaNoWriMo.” The way this works is I can’t leave a location and go somewhere else until I’ve written at least 100 words. I couldn’t leave my house this morning until I’d written at least 100 words. Then I went to the library downtown and I couldn’t leave until I wrote 100 words.

Now I’m at Souper Salad. After eating lunch, I set up my laptop computer and started writing. I got my word count up to 23,808.

Now I’m at the post office, sitting in my car with the laptop open. It’s cold outside and my fingers are a bit stiff, but I’m going for it. Can’t leave the post office until I’ve written at least 100 words. When I finally close the computer, I’m up to 24,022 words!

My final writing stop that day was the public library at University Hills. I wanted to finish my words there because I didn’t want to have to write in my car again if I went to the grocery store or the health club. I wrote until the battery in my laptop died, but I hadn’t reached 25,000 words yet, so I wandered around the library until I found a small conference room that was empty and had a table, chair, and an electrical outlet. I plugged my computer in and wrote until I reached 25,181 words!

Now if I can just do that one more time, write another 25.000 words in 15 days, I’ll finish the marathon. This has been quite an experience. Next month I’ll sleep.