There are people who knew they wanted to be professional writers for as long as they can remember. I am not one of those people. In college, inspired by an Elvis Costello song while walking through campus, I began writing a novel in longhand. I filled about a dozen legal pads before abandoning the manuscript, because I realized I was using it more for procrastination during mid-terms than as a serious attempt at personal expression. I don’t think I’ve earnestly tried writing any fiction since, though one item on my list, #19 – Write a novel, would seem to indicate that I still have unresolved issues about it.
Soonafter college, I briefly considered trying to make a living as a writer; after writing a column for a local monthly magazine in the early 90′s, I quickly gave up that idea. I found that when writing was my job, when it was a chore, my enjoyment of it quickly diminished. I only enjoyed it if I didn’t care if anyone was reading it, and I could write whatever I wanted. (This is a large part of the reason I started this blog, probably a large part of the reason why anyone starts a blog.)
So, while I haven’t much wanted to be a professional writer, I have always wanted to write. I have sporadically kept a journal of some sort for most of my life, and when given an opportunity to write about something I like or am interested in, I will usually take it, paid or not. My biggest problem is that those opportunities rarely present themselves to me, and I rarely present myself to them. In other words, I don’t write as much as I would like to.
Ask any writer, go to any workshop, read any book about writing, and they will all tell you that the most important thing about writing is to get in the habit of writing. Set aside a specific time each day and just write. Don’t worry about what is going on the page, just let the words flow. Don’t worry about the quality, just make the time to write. As you get in the habit, you will start to develop as a writer, and the quality will improve over time. In other words, if you write regularly, you will write regularly.
Surprisingly, this seems to be the hardest thing about writing. In my case, nothing could be more true.
I seem to write only when inspired to say something. I often struggle, as it has been so long since I have tried to string a few words together, that the act of writing seems to be a burden in itself. (For an illustration of this, just look in the sidebar and see how infrequently I update this blog.)
Many of the items on my list require that I write. If I were to finish all of them, they could probably fill a good sized 
bookshelf. In order to finish them, therefore, I need to develop the habit of writing. I had been considering this for a few days, trying to figure out what time of day works best for me (apparently none), when I heard about National Novel Writing Month. The idea, if you haven’t heard about it, is to write a novel in 30 days. It begins on November 1st, and if you write 50,000 words by November 30th, you will “win.” Last year, nearly 80,000 people signed up, and 13,000 finished their novel. The idea is not to produce a publishable manuscript, but to just sit down, start writing, and finish. As it states on the website:
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
I’m not normally inclined to participate in these kinds of things, but this seemed like an opportunity I could not pass by. I will be traveling quite a bit in November, and the nearly 28 hours I will be spending on airplanes seems like as good a time as any to focus on writing a novel. I have little idea what I will be writing about, but I have a week to plan. Hopefully, when I board the plane to Los Angeles on November 1st, I will have enough of an outline to begin knocking out my first draft. If nothing else, I will at least be writing regularly again, if only for a month.