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Somebody told me that one should write in the form that one loves to read. That makes sense, doesn’t it? Why grill steaks if you’re a vegetarian? (This also means I’ll never take my master’s degree as theses and dissertations are not exactly my kind of bedtime reading). Following that principle, people would probably deduce that my favorite literary forms to read would be the autobiography and personal essay as it is the form (not that literary though) that I most often write in, right? Wrong. I write personal essays and short autobiographies not because I like reading personal essays and short autobiographies but simply because I like talking about myself and myself is my favorite topic.

Actually, my favorite literary form is the novel… not Leo Tolstoi novels that would take forever to read but just short and sweet novels that use simple words and are easy to understand. I’ve mentioned this before but my favorite authors are Sophie Kinsella, Alexander McCall Smith, Sue Townsend, of course J.K. Rowling, and the only victorian author I ever read… Jane Austen. Up to now, I also like reading children’s novels like Anne of Green Gables and Wizard of Oz.

So it follows that someone who loves writing as much as I do should also write novels, right? Wrong again. I can’t write novels simply because I don’t have a single molecule or body cell of story or plot in my physiology. So when I came across the nanowrimo website with their motto… “no plot, no problem,” I had an epiphany.

I can do this, I told myself. I could do this nanowrimo insanity. All I had to do for the whole month of November was to write 50,000 words. No blogging. No TV. Perhaps acknowledge Honey’s presence once in awhile. Well, of course the 50,000 words had to be remotely related to this vague idea of a novel that I have and I would actually win. I couldn’t simply write “this is the stupidest novel ever” over and over again. I already had characters in my mind… interesting characters too… based on real people (hint: I run the risk of getting sued if ever the slim chance of publication happens and the real people could identify themselves). I can just put them in silly scenes which go nowhere… I can do this. I’ve done this all my life… daydreaming about people and places. All I have to do is to make up silly nonsense as I go along. Nanowrimo doesn’t judge content… all they need is my 50,000 words.

And I did reach 50,000 words by the 30th day of November this year. So I should have won, right? Oh wrong again! Unfortunately, for those of us who did extreme nanowrimo, our word count couldn’t be verified. Yes, I did extreme crazy nanowrimo… I wrote my 50,000 words entirely by hand. Ha! Beat that for craziness. Unfortunately, I couldn’t send it for validation. (I googled it… there’s no device that could digitalize my handwriting and convert it to word). But honestly, it’s okay. I know I did 50,000 words… I actually counted each and every freaking word in every page manually with my mechanical pencil and added them all up with my trusty calculator. Now, that’s really extreme instead of simply checking the word count in the Microsoft word statistics.

I wrote painstakingly each and every sing bloody word of my 50,000 words with my Pilot V5 pen on A4-sized 5-subject spiral notebooks. I wrote everyday… averaging 1,667 words a day… for two or three hours. I only wrote on one side reserving the other side for notes and calculations. For instead of using the automatic statistics function of Microsoft word, I counted each word one by one with my mechanical pencil

That’s okay, really… it’s not like the nanowrimo awards come in cash… they just come in badges which I could display in my blog. Since I didn’t win, I have no badge to display, but I do have photos of my two 5-subject notebooks which I filled up to complete my 50,047 words (to be exact).

I wrote almost everyday… on my desk or in the balcony of our apartment amidst tall bamboo trees.

Our apartment is on the second floor of our building but these trees are taller than my balcony. And with the wind blowing across my face, I felt like Jane Austen (minus the girdle) writing down First Impressions (the original title of Pride and Prejudice).

My nanowrimo writing sessions have been both the most blissful the most nerve-wracking writing experience I’ve ever had. It’s blissful because I’m giving my imagination a jet booster by just writing whatever comes to my mind. But it’s also nerve-wracking because most of the time fear, the urge to edit, criticize myself, and make everything logical, and my great big giant ego freeze me up.

Ego to Toe: What audacity you have, you silly creature! What makes you think you could write a novel? Do you think you’ll be the next J.K. Rowling or John Grisham? You think you can retire early and live on your royalties? You’re untalented and illogical and uncreative. Worst of all, you can’t spell!”

But I always have Brenda Ueland at my side who tells me:

Let her go! Be careless, reckless! Be a lion, be a pirate! Write any old way.

(Note: Brenda Ueland is NOT another imaginary friend. She’s the writer of the book If You Want to Write which is always at my bedside).

So write I did. And true to the nanowrimo motto, my plot was non-existent. I spent pages writing down what my heroine ate for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, describing each succulent piece of fresh prawns or the waft of each molecule of aroma of freshly-brewed coffee. Now, you got it right… that went on for 50,000 words. I went on and on about food that I haven’t even introduced all my main characters yet. I was not writing a publishable book… but it sure made me hungry.

So have I written the next New York Times bestselling novel? Of course…. NOT! But that’s okay. I may not be able to publish a book or be the next J.K. Rowling. In fact, if I thought of such egoistic things as publication, money, what my Dad would think (if he’d disown me), what my friends would think, if my boss would judge me and edit my wrong grammar in her autographed copy of my book, I don’t think I could have written a single sentence at all. I tried my best to set aside all those thoughts which I know are coming from pride and just wrote recklessly and freely. It’s my first draft. No one needs to read it. I could be as stupid, mundane, boring as I could be. I just wrote what was next… the idea that came at that particular moment.

But wait… what a waste of time, right. All those bloody hours and I’m not going to be published or get rich? What’s the point?

And so now I have established reasons why you should work from now on until you die, with real love and imagination and intelligence, at your writing… out of the mountains that you write some mole hills will be published. Or you may make a fortune and win the Nobel Prize. But if nothing is ever published at all and you never make a cent, just the same it will be good that you have worked.

Therefore all should work. First because it is impossible that you have no creative gift. Second: the only way to make it live and increase is to use it. Third: you cannot be sure that it is not a great gift.

- Brenda Ueland in If You Want to Write

And that is how I did my Nanowrimo Extreme. And I am happy. Who wants to join me next year?

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