A Little Peer Pressure and a Non-Lame Workbook
Special to the Pikes Peak Writers Blog from Mandy Houk, PPW NewsMagazine Editor.
Mandy Houk
Last year, I did not plan to participate in NaNoWriMo. I’d heard about it in years past and pretty much avoided even thinking about it. It was too huge of a thing for little old me to handle.
But I’d joined Pikes Peak Writers several months earlier, and the emails from NaNo participants were hard to ignore. They were so excited—the rookies and the old-timers alike. They were sending buddy requests, counting down days, outlining their plots, planning write-in parties. The excitement, the giddiness, the buzz—they were contagious.
To put it simply: I succumbed to peer pressure.
And by November 30th I’d turned an idea that had been rattling around in my head for two years into the first 52,000 words of my second novel. My first novel (which currently resides in the proverbial drawer) took me nearly a year to write, so nobody was more astonished at my NaNo accomplishment than I was.
This year, I wasn’t planning to participate again. I’ve got the NewsMag Editor thing to think about, along with teaching a Creative Writing class and home schooling my middle school daughter. And I don’t have a new idea—nor an old one that’s waiting for attention.
But I have promised my Creative Writing students (and both of my writing-loving daughters) to keep them informed about contest and publication opportunities for youth. When I saw the Young Writers Program within NaNoWriMo, I was thrilled to share the opportunity with them.
Then a funny thing happened. A bunch of them—including both of my daughters—signed up. So I had to sign up as the esteemed “Educator.” (Technically, I don’t think the esteem is automatic. But I can dream.) Turns out that when you sign up as an Educator, you’re automatically entered into the challenge.
At first, I was annoyed. I hadn’t planned to join the insanity again. Not because I hadn’t loved it last year—I really did. But last year, I had a ripe idea just waiting to drop off the tree. Even though it was tricky to work writing into my daily schedule (and holiday cooking, baking, cleaning, and hostessing), it was also a huge thrill. And it gave me a new vision of myself as someone who actually can do huge things, not just dream about them. That’s something that will last me a lifetime.
So I spent a couple of days being annoyed. Griping. Whining. It was a fun couple of days. And then I started looking at the YWP workbooks (they really are, as the site says, “non-lame”). And I started receiving emails from my students, who are absolutely boiling over with excitement. They’re setting cool word count goals (13,013 in one case). They’re asking me how to schedule their writing. They’re asking me about my novel, and telling me it sounds really funny. (It’s not supposed to be. It’s supposed to be poignant. I might need to rethink my logline.)
All of this is beginning to feel quite familiar. The group dynamics of sharing a common goal, a common dream. The contagion of excitement. The giddiness. The buzz.
Apparently, peer pressure crosses generational boundaries. Even by twenty or thirty years.
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