In two days it’s November. For those of you who don’t know November is the month for NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo stands for – National Novel Writing Month, which is the idea of writing a 50000-word novel in a month. This year I have decided to participate in this undertaking in the hopes that it can help me kick start my length writing back up again.
I’m nervous too be honest, it’s been a while since I’ve written anything substantial. The thing is, I always gravitate back to my writing but there are many kinds of writing. One of my goals in this life is to write a novel a full-novel in its entirety, and if anyone has ever tried you’ll know it is immensely difficult. Before I started University I had written parts of a novel of my own, a grand epic that included every idea of the things that got me excited in reading in the first place, it’s been 5 years since I’ve touched it. The world I created became incredibly taxing and mentally draining to write, don’t get me wrong I loved it, but creating a world within your own mind and bringing it out is best described by the character Howard Wolowitz in Big Bang Theory:
“Have you ever gone into a cage with a wolverine?”
It flows and ebbs, torrential or drip dry, oh novel writing is a fickle mistress, but it’s different this time. Firstly, it’s a different kind of novel and story, something that I’ve thought about doing but just never got around to doing it. Second, I have a lot of time to spare in this present state of my life so why not? Third, I’m excited-nervous which is a big deal for me. I don’t get excited about things anymore really, again don’t get me wrong I enjoy things, but exciting is rare on my everyday occurrence scale. Fourth and finally, I’m older, I have a better grasp on the human condition, and I hope it translates into my work, in a human way. If anything, I enjoy my writing the most when it connects and that’s what I really want, to get out of NaNoWriMo this year.
But Byron this is all well and good but where’s the stuff about Harry Potter?
Fear not, I’m bringing it around, here we go! This past week I’ve been on a Harry Potter rewatching movie marathon with my girlfriend and it’s honestly been goals you should be envious, go on, I’ll wait…
Okay now that you’re done, Okay okay two more minutes…
Okay times up, let me tell you why I bring it up. I doubt it’s hard to find Harry Potter fans pretty much anywhere you go around the world. It’s an incredibly well-known story, so much so it’s integrated itself within our cultural society, Halloween being an easy example. But I wonder how many people delve deeper into the story and why it’s so popular?
Harry Potter is an incredibly well-encapsulated bildungsroman. For those who don’t know a bildungsroman is a genre in writing about a character coming into adulthood, look it up, there ah pretty popular. But back to what I was saying, Harry Potter, is like watching your childhood. It’s incredibly rare for a story to capture that idea so well. HP is slow and progressive and it spans just enough for you to continuously care, it’s not too short to feel too little, but not too long for you to lose interest.
We care about these characters because we are them. In our own little ways, we are Harry, we are Ron, we are Hermione, and it’s that idea that truly gets me excited to write. If I can capture that idea of growth I’ll have achieved my goal in writing this novel.
So this post is a commemoration to childhood, to the doubts and concerns, the exhilaration of youth and for the courage to face the dark, undaunted and without fear.
For those of you reading this, here’s a link to check out any information you might have about NaNoWriMo: https://nanowrimo.org/about
Milkshake Thoughts 