How I Survived National Novel Writing Month

Write whatever you want. So I did. If I felt like resuming passages about the enemies-to-lovers ballroom scene, I did. | This is a 5-minute read.

Hello and Salaams my friends 👋🏾,

I hope you’re faring well and your writing is going smoothly. If not, our first guest post may be just the motivation you need to help you push through the draft!

Also, just a reminder that every third Friday of the month, I’ll be sharing posts from members of the community about writing, life and everything in-between. If you have a personal essay you’re itching to share or any top tips others can benefit from, please drop us a message at qalbwriterscollective@gmail.com. With several years of editing experience, I’ll work with you to sharpen your writing and get to the heart of your piece.

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“Words, words, words,” Hamlet despairingly says in Act III of his play. No wonder Hamlet is a tragedy!

It’s a common stereotype that we writers hate numbers. But did you know that numbers love us? Love to see us struggling, rather.

Fifty-thousand words. 100 pages. Thirty days.

That’s the goal of NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), a yearly movement that takes place in November. Writers from all around the world set a word count that they aspire to reach by the 30th. The most common count is 50,000, as that is the average length of novels.

I’d first heard of NaNo when I was in 11th grade. I remember struggling in my third month of an advanced residential public school when I overheard my suitemates chatting about how they would attempt NaNo that year. Meanwhile, I was buried in my books—not mine, the ones assigned to me—and told them, “Good luck.”

Thirteen years later, I told myself: “Bismillah.”

Every month leading up to November 2023, there was a new hurdle to overcome. I had my third hip surgery in July. I began working a second job in August. My first one already dealt with a lot of wordsmithing, and I fretted that I’d be too burnt out to perform my own wordplay. In September, I began the process for graduate school applications in (you guessed it) Creative Writing. October was Preptober, but more harrowing than that was the siege on Gaza.

I was emotionally, financially, and physically overwhelmed. How could I manage to write a book on top of that?

I had to remind myself of why I was doing this.

A sadaqa jariyah (perpetual reward) looks different for everyone. For some, it’s a tree. For others, it’s a story they publish. That people, young and old, can benefit from. 

I’ve always been fascinated by cartoons and fairytales. I quip that ādāb (literature) is how we learn adab (etiquettes). Adults still remember Harry Potter fondly from their youth. Each one can recount lessons of character, like how “muggle-borns” and “pure-bloods” can still accomplish great things regardless of their origins.

Surely that concept carries over to the “real world” as well. This motivated me to write about a fictional race resisting oppression for the remainder of November.

I didn’t write every day. Sometimes I was too tired to string words together, and others, I tried to work ahead. I took the “NaNo Rebel” route—to resume a document rather than start one from the beginning. I had toyed with my story idea for some time, and was very grateful that I had started a few pages by the time NaNo started. I attended three protests: the national in D.C., the state in Austin, TX, and a domestic in Dallas. Writing was also my main task at my two jobs, and I was commissioned for a Palestine-centered piece for Amaliah.

Naturally, I got behind.

The date-deadline often smiled at me. I swore that I saw the curve of the N at the beginning and the h’s twirl at the end like a Cheshire cat’s grin. Tick-tock, tick-tock.

NaNoWriMo was fun at first. Cut out social media and paste more Google Docs. But then the slump hit; the inevitable writer’s block that left me banging my head against the metaphorical steering wheel. I thought I knew the directions by heart. Why wouldn’t my creative car start again? Why was the engine not engine-ing? (These were the kind of things my exhausted brain would say).

The core advice of NaNo is: “Just write.” Don’t focus on editing. Write whatever you want. So I did. If I felt like resuming passages about the enemies-to-lovers ballroom scene, I did. If I wanted to write about the exhilaration of being in a protest, I did.

Before I knew it, my word count was 50,012. A small homage to the fact I’d heard about NaNo when I was approaching 12th grade.

As soon as I noticed, I darted out of my office into the musallah (prayer hall) and performed sajdah al-shukur (the prostration of gratitude). The carpet wasn’t too wet from tears when I left, alhamdulillah.

Ramadan is a yearly reminder of who I am as a Muslim. Now, NaNoWriMo is a reminder of who I am as a writer.

May this year of Qalb remind you of the same. That you are here to tell a story, and insha’Allah, to sell a story.

Say it with me like I did a few months ago: “Bismillah.”

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Till next time,

Suad