Christian Author Donna Dawson

Duke the Chihuahua, in his desire to ease the loss of Sir Pugsley's passing, has poured himself into his writing.  He did the one thing that I am still working up the courage to do--he signed on to the nanowrimo website.  What is nanowrimo you may ask?  It is a shortened form of National November Writing Month.  Nanowrimo. 

I can understand Duke's thinking.  When a loved one is gone it is therapeutic to fill the minutes with tasks that will keep our minds busy.  I am of two thoughts on nanowrimo however.  I find it difficult enough as it is to learn all the nuances of writing and then equally difficult to pass them on to my students.  I don't need them going off willie-nillie and writing--as the website states--'kamikaze-style crap'.  And yet. 

National November Writing Month tends to do what few creative writing instructors can do.  It inspires a person to begin and end a book without thought of rewrite.  It keeps it as basic as possible--shouts to the world 'write that book!'.  The beauty of a program like this is in its support and encouragement.  No one, anywhere, on the site says the writing has to be good.  That gives a writer incredible freedom.  They can write parallel to the thought that 'it doesn't have to be good--it just has to be done.'  And so it gets done.  Sometimes we get so caught up in having to make the blessed thing perfect that we never actually finish our book.  Ergo the authors who take twenty years to finish their first book.

As I watch poor Duke tap away on the keyboard, pausing on occasion to dab at an errant tear with the handkerchief willed to him by Sir Pugsley, I am reminded that life is somewhat like writing.  Often times we waste far too much of it in the intsy-wintsy details that we forget to live it.  So what if we sail through the moment's task with a bit too much of a laissez-faire attitude.  There is always time later for the fine tuning. 

Duke is rounding the final bend in his 50,000 word nanowrimo novel and I shudder to think of the number of edits the silly thing will need.  But Duke is doing what so many don't do--he is writing that novel.  From beginning to end.  And he is sharing in an experience that is global.  Like Duke, thousands of other nanowrimo's are tearing toward the November 31st finish line.  He, too, is sacrificing those tasty bones and choice chunks of table scraps in order to get that word-count completed.  He, too, has abandoned his personal hygiene to the point where he's beginning to look a smell more like the dog he is and less like the refined gentlepooch.  He, too, groans with the seizing up of joints that have stayed too long in one position.  And when it is all said and done, Duke the Chihuahua will be able to celebrate with those thousands world wide.

And then my job will begin.  I will likely be given the task of editing my canine editor's work.

Look for Nanowrimo at http://www.nanowrimo.org/