Q:Krista, you won NaNoWriMo in 2007 with your newborn baby in your lap! In the waning hours of November, you became a NaNo winner and a mama. Were the stars aligned, or did you plan it that way all along?
A: I certainly didn't plan it that way! I knew I'd likely still be pregnant with our first child during NaNo, but he wasn't due until December 9th, and first babies are notoriously late anyway. I really didn't worry too much about not finishing, figuring that if my flighty pregnant brain would allow me to write, I'd have no trouble finishing up before his arrival.
In fact, on the 25th, mainly to avoid wondering if every little twinge was labor or not, I churned out about 6K on my novel and brought myself to about 49,300 words. I thought I had this one in the bag and figured I'd finish it up the next day with plenty of time to spare.
This, of course, didn't happen.
The next morning, with two weeks exactly until the baby's due date, I went to see my obstetrician for a regular checkup. It was just my luck that on that day, for the first time in his very long career, he managed to accidentally break a pregnant mother's water during an exam—mine—and I was sent over to labor and delivery to try and convince
this baby to come out. Goodbye 2007 NaNo win!
Labor, however, is long and boring. I tried to use the hospital's free WiFi to download a draft of my novel and finish up there, but the hospital's draconian Internet security policy blocked access to my server, so I had to resign myself to watching bad sci-fi and screaming a lot for drugs.
Early the next day, our beautiful baby boy was born via C-section. Somehow, the novel didn't seem like such a big deal anymore. (It wasn't nearly as cute as our new little guy, for one thing.)
Vicodin and hospital food, however, do not make the guilt monkeys go away, and since newborns sleep a lot, I had days of dead time in my hospital room to get annoyed with the fact that I couldn't finish. By the time they let us go home, I'd somehow confused myself into thinking the deadline had passed. I mourned the fact that I wouldn't win this year, and went home to get on with the real business of
feeding the baby, not sleeping, and recovering from surgery.
That night, though, I was sitting in the recliner surfing the web with the little guy sleeping on my lap, and by pure luck I happened to scroll over the time and date in my laptop's taskbar - 10 pm, November 30th.
November 30th! I still had two hours! Hoping the little guy would stay asleep, I downloaded my draft and started to type away, largely one-handed, frantically writing whatever came to mind. And sometime after 11 on November 30th, I submitted my winning novel for verification. I'd won NaNo and received the Unofficial 2007 NaNoWriMo Baby (the cutest baby in the universe, of course) all in the course of
a few days.
It was AWESOME.
Of course, this unfortunately means I have no excuse not to finish
ever again. (The guilt monkeys made me say that!)
Krista Grothoff is a iack-of-all-trades (master of none) who lives in Denver, Colorado with her very cute baby. She's done NaNo four times and has won twice. She hates small dogs and writing bios, fears her mother-in-law, and loves chocolate and making her kid giggle.
