You Only Fail If You Stop Writing
This November, I will be participating in NaNoWriMo—National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo is a personal challenge where you try to write a 50,000 word novel over the course of 30 days. It’s a challenge that forces you to develop a strict writing practice—writing 1,500+ words a day for 30 days is hard and necessitates intense planning and consistency. You quickly have to become comfortable with error and very tolerant of your own bad writing. The whole ethos of NaNoWriMo is nicely summarized by this quote from Ray Bradbury: “You only fail if you stop writing.”
NaNoWriMo is also wonderful for building community around writing. There is a rich NaNoWriMo community across the world. As well as an active online community, you can also find in-person groups at your local library, pub, community center, etc. As my fellow substackers already know, writers are the best people—and building community with such an engaged and creative collection of human beings can be very rewarding. There is an “official” NaNoWriMo website, which contains a writing platform, resources, advice from writers, listings of local meet-ups, etc. It’s a great place to get started if you are interested, but it’s also worth noting that the “official” NaNoWriMo organization has been the source of a number of controversies over the last few years regarding their stance on AI and safeguarding issues. But NaNoWriMo existed as a community long before there was an “official” organization—you don’t have to engage with the website to participate.
I have participated in NaNoWriMo on-and-off for the last 10 years, both as an individual and as a teacher. Previously, I used the Young Writer’s Program with my Montessori Elementary students as an optional challenge during the month of November, and in my adolescent program I helped set it up as a student-led club. Students could set their own word count goal, break it in to daily targets, and support each other through the ups-and-downs of trying to develop a writing habit. NaNoWriMo was part of a strategy I had in all my class environments to establish “a culture of writing.” I wanted to make writing something that felt cool, inclusive, accessible, and fun—a club that you wanted to join, rather than something dry and academic. I think of all academic subjects in a similar way—an opportunity to create spaces for young people to find their cognitive niche.
My Challenge
But then on Monday a new Cockapoo puppy joined our lives, Teddy, who is equal parts adorable and demanding. He joins the already complicated rollercoaster ride of self-employment and raising two human children that is my life. As such, I don’t anticipate much writing time this November. Instead of a 50,000 word novel, I have a much more humble and hopefully achievable goal. I plan to write an article a day for the month of November—30 articles in total. I’m leaving my word count goal loose, between 600-1000 words, to account for the fact that some articles need more, some less. Don’t worry, I’m not going to publish an article a day. That would be overwhelming for all of us. But I’ll try and publish a couple each week. The rest will hopefully serve as content for at least a few months beyond November!
I’ve planned out a few initial ideas for articles, and I have a collection of books on hand for inspiration. They say there are two types of writers: planners and pantsers. People who plan, and people who fly by the seat of their pants. I’m definitely the latter, but I do at least have the “concepts of a plan.” Here are some of the things I hope to cover:
Finishing my article series on Loving the Unloveable Child.
Continuing my article series on Building Trust with Children, Families, and Teachers.
I want to write about “embodied teaching practice” and what I learned from the now extinct Mindful Schools program.
I have had lots of thoughts about Montessori as a radical movement for change, and want to revisit Dr. Montessori’s Education & Peace. I also want to unpack her ideas about Communism and Democracy in light of our current political moment.
I want to write about this article from Maria Popova about Octavia Butler and about this article on niches that
sent me.I was so inspired by Naomi Klein’s book Doppelganger and want to share some of my takeaways and how they relate to education. I’m particularly interested in studying and writing about Red Vienna after discovering about it in Doppelganger.
I’ve also been lit up by Eloise Rickman’s It’s Not Fair: Why It’s Time for a Grown-Up Conversation About How Adults Treat Children. This book has pushed and challenged me to deepen my commitment to childism and child-centered practice and philosophy.
Hopefully, this will get me through at least the first few weeks! If you have any other suggestions for what I should write about, please share in the chat. I need all the help I can get. And as I’ve hit 850 words for today, that will do! See you again tomorrow, empty page.
This goal is inspiring! I can’t wait to see what comes of it. But just the act of writing daily will surely be the foundation for some great stuff.