So I have been absent lately. There is a reason, it isn’t because I was being lazy, just the opposite actually. I found out about this thing, it is a writing challenge. November was dubbed National Novel Writing Month. I have long dreamed of writing books, novels, children’s books, you name it. I have spent my working career writing but nothing as interesting as a novel. I write news. So when I heard about this writing challenge I was intrigued. So I registered.

What did I register for you ask? Well, the challenge was to writing 50,000 words in the month of November. It is considered the equivalanet of a small novel. A whopping 50,000 words. A lot right. Right! It is a lot of words for anyone but when you factor in the fact that I am a Mom to two little girls, a wife and a full time radio news journalist and freelance magazine writer it is a seriously huge amount of words. I wasn’t sure how I was going to find the time to write but I committed to doing it. I was up for a challenge. I love to write and heck I needed to put my money where my mouth was. I have long said I wanted to write a book, so what was stopping me. NOTHING. So, I just started to write.

It was hard. I found it difficult to get things going but once things got rolling the story just flowed. For a while anyway and then real life started to creep in. The writing stalled as my other responsibilties were calling. As the month continued I realized I was quickly running out of time. There was a deadline that was fast approaching, 50,000 words by midnight EST November 30th.

The last week of November was on top of me and I was no where near being done. I was only at about 20,000 words. I needed to haul ass. And I did. I got to work and just let the ideas flow, I would have to worry about quality later. It was all about quantity. I was worried that I wouldn’t get it done but I did. Thirty thousand words in a week. Amazing.

It was hard. There were days that I struggled with what to say, or what to write rather. It was hard to make the time to just sit at the computer, uninterupted and just write. I loved doing it but there is no doubt that writing a novel is work. There are a lot of people who say they have always wanted to write a book, but that is certainly easier said than done. It is hard work.