Naleighna Kai's Literary Cafe Magazine November Edition | Page 16

Running the Gauntlet
Getting Back to the Lab
Shakir RaShaan
If you’ve been keeping up with me on social media
(and let’s face it, you need to be keeping up with me
on social media LOL), then you know what I’ve been
up to this month. For those of you who haven’t been,
let me get you up to speed quickly. surely if you’ve been writing novels for any length of
time, then you can certainly understand how easily
that can be accomplished, right?
I’m in the midst of the yearly gauntlet that is
affectionately known as NaNoWriMo—National
Novel Writing Month. If you’re not aware of what
NaNoWriMo is, then I will attempt to give you the
gist of it. National Novel Writing Month is the yearly
grind that authors voluntarily engage in where they
commit to composing a novel from scratch and
writing fifty thousand words during the month of
November. What happens if you have life stuff that happens?
For those of you who love the mathematics of things,
that means an author must commit to approximately
1,700 words per day, every day, until November 30th.
Sounds like an easy walk in the park, right? I mean, What about the motivation to actually write, especially
if your energy might be sapped from all of the above-
referenced instances? It takes energy to write, and the
proper headspace to do so. I mean, come on, if you’re
16 | NKLC Magazine
Not so fast, my friends.
What happens if writing isn’t your primary occupation?
You still have to work, and that work schedule picks up
in unexpected ways.
Family? Thanksgiving is coming up, and you still might
have to work on helping with the dinner menu and all
the trimmings, yes? What about the kids and all the
things they need to do for school?