Another Nanowrimo Challenge Has Come and Gone

In some ways, this was the most frantic and chaotic one-month writing challenge I have experienced. In other ways, it was the most rewarding and easiest. Instead of having a full month to fulfill Nanowrimo's 50 thousand word goal, I left for my European excursion on the 1st day of the month and didn't muster focus or energy enough to begin until November 11th. With less than three weeks left to meet the word goal, I knew I'd have to write twice as many words as I usually accomplish in a given day (in past years, I've always reached for 2000 a day). Due to the intensity of the daily requirement, I gave up my usual morning brainstorming walks. Less exercise and cogitation, but more writing.

The whole impetus for my trip was research for a sequel to my Dream-catcher and the Frog-kisser young adult novel. That novel ends with two young college students preparing for a trip to London, Paris, and Rome. Somehow, despite chatting with the two young women I met on the trip (Isabelle and Katie who used the Groupon deal for a girlfriend trip, after Isabelle's husband was called away for military duty), I couldn't get the feel for the dynamics of the girlfriend angle. After all, the primary thrust of my experience was that I had tackled the travel challenge on my own. I thought about writing an inspirational women's novel about a woman who goes on a solo trip and finds the inner strength she thought she'd lost for good, but that idea fell flat as well. In the end, I kept coming back to something Linda had said about how many interesting experiences I had encountered in my life and that it would make a riveting travel memoir. And so, bending the Nanowrimo rules a bit - after all, it is supposed to be a fiction challenge - I set out to write my travel memoir.

I titled it, loosely, There and Back Again: How Travel Changed my Life. I'm not fond of that title now, but we'll see if I can improve upon it. By far, my favorite part of the writing experience (apart from actually taking the trip that led to the memoir), involved digging out my old journals from my high school and college years. In October of 1981, my high school creative writing teacher issued a journaling assignment that I latched onto with gusto. I took that first journal everywhere. I had my friends sign it. I gave it a name (indeed, the first six journals have names - Alden, Brandy, Chauncey, Durwyn, Edwin, and Farr - most of the names meaning "friend"). I poured out every experience, every emotion, every encounter. I kept them meticulously for a little over a decade, but I think my marital struggles derailed my journaling because it no longer felt safe to write down my deepest, darkest feelings in tangible form. In looking back over the endless pages of writing, I was stunned by the intensity of my feelings and the depth of my spiritual hunger.

I kept a faithful record of all those earliest travel experiences - my first plane ride, my first international flight, and my first missionary trip. Every day was filtered through the lens of my idealistic youthful eyes. As I read the journals, I set about capturing those moments a second time with more focus and purpose. Writing about things that have actually happened to you is far easier than coming up with actions for a fictional character to experience. The daily word goal of 4000 words didn't seem difficult at all (although I found it took more time than fiction writing, perhaps because I spent a fair amount reviewing past words in order to articulate the ideas in a fresh form).

In addition to the old journals, I had five memory albums to sift through. Two of the albums contained photos, old programs, and paraphernalia from high school and college. One highlighted my summer service corps term in the Philippines. The final two were from my England adventures - Wheaton-in-England, and then my six-month residency.

Thanks to a two-day writing retreat at the beloved Mahseh Center in Kewanna, Indiana, I was only 800 words away from the goal on November 22nd. I took two days off for Thanksgiving and came back with a little less intensity (only completing an average of 3000 words each day), but finished the month with 61,000 words and an almost-complete first draft. I'm working on the most important part now, the take-away chapter. If a memoir doesn't provide something for the reader to connect with and take away from its pages, it is just a catalog of events. I may slow down for this part, but in a few days I should be done and ready to put it away for two months to simmer (so I can come at it with fresh eyes for the lengthy, tedious rewriting process).