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Monday, November 17, 2014

In Sum: Twelve States and NaNoWriMo

The title says it all.  In the last three weeks I've been in twelve states, traveling everywhere from the Midwest to the East Coast.  It's been fantastic, seeing all of these new places and old friends - that being said, there are other things that have been neglected.

I've neglected to tell you that I'm doing NaNoWriMo - and that I'm doing it badly.  Check it out:



Yeah, 15,000 on Day 17 isn't the best of stats.  (I have a car drive coming to recoup some of that, however; we've got a long stretch of Oklahoma ahead.)  But I have the best of excuses!  Eleven states and over 24 hours' worth of driving is no small thing.

My NaNoWriMo project is my first nonfiction work, a memoir of the past year's events.  It's called "Safe to Shore: A Missionary Kid's Journey Through The Liberian Ebola Crisis".  So far I'm up to this past May, and I still have a long road ahead.

That being said, I'm worrying about running out of words to say.  We'll see!  Worst comes to worst, I'll write the last half of my newest Will Vullerman story to add up the word count.

How about you guys?  Anyone here blowing up their brains - er, doing NaNoWriMo?  How badly are you dying?  What's your word count?

Till next time (and hopefully it'll be sooner),

4 comments:

  1. That book sounds real good.


    I just went on a 24 hour trip through 8 states.

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  2. What's it like writing a memoir? I feel like that would be interesting to try, but I also feel like it would be hard because I'd worry about misremembering things.

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  3. You can do it! I've got a little over 28,000 words, but I feel my inspiration fading. :[ Do you think non-fiction's harder to write than fiction? Kudos to you.

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  4. It's a very interesting writing style; part prose, part narrative, part exposition. It's tricky, but I think I'm getting the hang of it.

    One writer once called the memoir "the art of inventing the truth", which sums it up pretty well. I have a bad memory, but writing this is surprisingly easy - once you start, the memories come flooding back.

    I think writing nonfiction is a bit hard, if only because there's no room for invention. You have to stick to the facts and write them well. You can't invent new plot twists to keep your novel going longer so that you can get to 50,000 words, which I think is the toughest part about it.

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