She Came, She Wrote, She Won!

My sweet girl was itching to write for NaNoWriMo again this year with their Young Writers Program, after trying it for the first time last year.  Even when her Mama didn't write along with her (yes, I bailed...but, I worked diligently on my cheer leading skills!), she kept whipping her words into shape.

Last year, she worked with a special purple mechanical pencil and her Hello Kitty notebook, marking her words down by hand.  This year, she put the computer keyboarding skills she's learning in school to use and typed her NaNo.  As touch typing is a new skill still being honed, it was a little slower going.  But, she is one determined kidlet and didn't let a challenge stop her.

Today, she passed her word count goal and verified on the site, making her a WINNER!!!

We are so proud she kicks her goals' backside and is already talking about jumping back into NaNo next year!

Wanted: Missing Muse

My muse up and disappeared.  I thought she was simply escaping on a rather marvelous vacation.  I was, in fact, quite envious.  But now, I'm beginning to worry she developed a terminal illness and expired...and I'm trembling with fright at that disastrous prospect. 

 

November 1st is rapidly approaching, aka NaNoWriMo launch day, making that missing muse even more of a problem than it has been through the last year.

 

The previous two years, I click clacked my way across my keyboard for NaNoWriMo and last year, my wee girl got her NaNo on for the first time, jumping on board with great gusto.  She loved it so much, she wants to write again this year...and she wants the other half of her Mother-Daughter Team click clacking while she puts a special purple pencil to her Hello Kitty notebook.  With said muse missing, in distress, or chained face down in a river somewhere, I'm madly sending out search parties for her in hopes of joining my li'l girl for NaNo and thousands of words of my own.

 

The clock is counting down and at this point, I would happily accept a wayward muse or even a drunken, wandering muse who hiccups with greater enthusiasm than the hoped for whispering inspirations.

 

Send help.  I'm going to need it.

YWP NaNoWriMo { She's a Winner! }

November 1st began with squeals of delight from my sweet young girl as she found her Hello Kitty notebook and new pencils waiting for her to begin her very first NaNoWriMo through the Young Writer's Program.

 

For the first week, she couldn't wait to write everyday.  On school days, she got busy on her homework just to be free to put her pencil to paper and whittle her story, A Girl Who Lived on an Island Alone.  On the weekends, she often wrote before I even got up.

 

The second week held just as much excitement as the first.  By the third week?  She hit a speed bump and lost some interest.  I wavered between encouraging her to keep at it and not wanting to take away any of her joy in writing.  In early elementary school years, personally, I think it is more important to keep kidlets excited about telling stories than it is to drill in a daily writing habit.

 

And with the end of November rapidly approaching, she began writing again.  A secret smile plays on my lips when I see her smile as she writes her tales.

 

Today is November 30th and my sweet li'l girl entered her story to verify and validate and...

WIN!!!!

 

 

She won her very first NaNoWriMo and I sincerely hope there are more writing experiences we can share still to come.  And every time she grabs her special NaNo Hello Kitty notebook throughout this coming year, I'll be wearing my secret smile.

 



YWP NaNoWriMo

There once was a wee girl who whittled words across the pages of any notebook she could lay her hands on.  When her mother click clacked across a keyboard, she ran for her own pages to wind words around whatever story that whittled itself through her imagination.

 

As her mother began thinking about what story she would write come this year's NaNoWriMo, this wee girl madly wrote her own adventure.  And her mother entertained the idea that flickered in front of her as she watched her daughter write her tale.

 

Could this wee girl join her mother for NaNoWriMo this year?

Yes!  She can and that's exactly what this wee girl, my wee girl, is going to do on Thursday!

 

She is using the Young Writer's Program (YWP) from NaNoWriMo.  And while she's not doing this with her class or anyone in her school, she's going to write her words while I write mine.

 

While working in her YWP workbook for elementary school age kidlets, she turned to me with such excitement in her eyes.  "Can I do NaNoWriMo next year too?" She gushed with pure excitement bubbling over.  And of course, I told her, "Yes! You can do NaNoWriMo every year for the rest of your life, if you want."  Two beats of silence and my wee girl with golden pig tails bounced up and down, "I can??!! Yahoooooooooooo!!!!"

 

So. Unbelievably. Awesome. 

 

We're still picking a word count goal for her.  The last story she wrote, taking a little over an hour or so to write, almost met the high end word count for her age.  So we're going to pick something a little higher in order for it to be something to write towards over the month.  But obviously don't want to make it so high, it's unachievable.  An achievable challenge is the goal.

Thursday, November 1st - the first day of NaNo, my wee girl will wake up to a fresh new notebook with a special pink mechanical pencil tied off in a bow waiting for her words to fill the pages.

 

Tick. Tock.  It's almost here!