Ron Dean's NaNoWriMo Adventure — Blood and Promises

Today’s bloggy is brought to you by my good friend and partner in NaNoWriMo, Ron Dean. Congratulations to Ron for being a 2019 NaNoWriMo winner!

Check back this Thursday to see if I too managed to knit together 50,000 words in November.

It has ended. Blood has been spilled. Promises fulfilled. Final word count: 50,632**

(the asterisk's asterisk--what is this, a Major League Baseball statistic?)

BLOOD

When my wife was pregnant with our first, parents warned me that life would never be the same. They told of constant sacrifices in personal time, spousal time, eating time, and most of all, sleeeeeeep. “Bring it on!” I’d think. “I can handle anything--me in my late twenty-something, know-it-all prime!” Then the kid’s born and it hits you like an avalanche--the parents were right. Everything they said was true, including the stuff they’d only implied with a wink or an oh-you’ll-see expression. But then you think on it some more one sleepless, nebulizer night and realize that all those pre-birth warnings and anecdotes could never come close to preparing you for the shockwave of parenthood more than urine-soaked first-hand experience. You’ve got to live it to learn it, baby.

Having plunged into the waters of new parenthood, flailing, choking, following bubbles to wherever up was and eventually surfacing to perpetually tread water since, I approached NaNoWriMo with hard-earned wisdom and hardened caution. “1,667 words a day for 30 days? Bring it on?” I’d never lived that. Though the goal seemed certainly reachable, it would require sacrifices I wasn’t sure I’d be willing to make. How much blood was I willing to shed, and would the learning be worth it?

PROMISES

Nobody wants to shed blood unless it’s for a darned good reason, be it getting tested for local allergies or keeping the local vampire fed. We’ll suffer for the good of all--for the promise of leaving behind a world in better shape than it was yesterday. Having now successfully completed the challenge, I personally feel it was worth the trouble. My story is halfway done as opposed to a measly tenth. I know what the story is and how to approach writing moving forward. I loved the moments of inspiration and creativity. But I have to be honest about NaNoWriMo: meeting its word-count goal might require others to break promises, not so much to themselves, but to others. 

I can’t ignore the negative impact the challenge has made on me and my family. Since I was only ever able to write during my free hours, I forgot the name and face of my wife. Because there were days when I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep up the pace, I brainstormed and snuck away to write when I should have been paying more attention to my kids. And of course, I had to sacrifice hobbies or activities that keep me healthy, happy, and sane; namely exercising, watching tv with the missus, reading, and gaming. 

VERDICT

I lived it and I learned it. “It” in this case means “how I need to write moving forward.” There is tremendous power in writing everyday, most of it positive. To have the experience of productive writing and creation in my mental toolkit is invaluable. I can ease off on the throttle a bit so I don’t pass my family and self by, but I also know how to rev back up should my writing progress stall. I may never attempt NaNoWriMo again, but I’m very glad I did so. And of course, I’m very, very grateful to have had a friend to push me along the way. Thanks uncle Bry! I hope you learned something along the way that will help you as you move forward.

*This final word count includes repurposed words “borrowed” from an older draft. Shhhhh!