Have you ever had an idea for a (short) story that you wanted to write but figured that it probably wasn’t worth writing? I felt that way numerous times. Ever since I was a kid, I have enjoyed writing stories in school, and later in high school I would write poetry. Or at least something that had to pass for poetry.

I always had to urge to write things, or make stories up and tell them to someone else. I remember this one time when we were in Ireland, me and my sister would share a room and every night she would ask me to tell her a story. She really enjoyed listening to it, and to be honest I think she would be the only one who would. The stories weren’t that good and I figure they were probably a little bit weird too.

However, I never gave up on the idea of writing a novel and ever since I heard about NaNoWriMo I have thought of ideas to get that goal realized.
NaNoWriMo is an annual event where people can try and write a novel of at least 50,000 words. You try to write something every day, and whether or not the story is good, the goal is to achieve the 50,000 words while having fun writing it.

Unfortunately I never managed to pull through and finish one, but at least I tried every year. I guess that just means that my stories weren’t good enough, or interesting enough for me to continue writing it. This year is a little different though. I’m working on an outline for a story and I plan to start writing it in November when NaNoWriMo takes place.

What makes it different this year is that I’m prepared. Every year I went in thinking I could figure out the story as I went on writing it, but the truth is that you really need to have at least an idea of where you’re heading and how you want the storyline to go on. My problem mostly was doing the research while trying to reach my goal and this year I’m doing (most of ) the research now so I can have an idea of what I’m doing.

It doesn’t really mean that I will finish this year, although I truly hope that’s what I’ll be doing. I want to finish it at least once, and for some reason I’m more driven to do it this year than I’ve been any other year I participated. I can’t say exactly what it is, but there is some kind of urge to start writing and see how the story unfolds, how the characters evolve and what the dialogue will be like.

The story itself might not be good enough for anyone to read but the most important goal for me this year is not to write a novel that everyone likes. It would help of course, but it’s not the main goal. This year I want to actually enjoy writing it and not feel like it’s such a task and hassle that I don’t really want to commit to. And that’s probably the main difference from past years. I really want to do it for myself now, I don’t want or need everyone to read it, I just want to write something that I feel I can be proud of despite of what others say. It might be a starting point to grow in the way I write things and to have a fun learning experience.

Going into it with a different mindset; reaching the finish line rather than write something that’s worthy of publishing might make all the difference. It might even take the task-like feeling away from it when it starts to become difficult to pull through. I’m motivated enough to do it, and I can’t wait to begin.

Who knows, maybe one day I will write that one story that is worth publishing…..

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