Christina Montana has slept a total of nine hours in the past four days, but finals aren’t to blame.
Montana, 20, spent the past month with her laptop and the occasional bag of chocolate Twizzlers writing a total of 50,000 words — about 175 pages — for National Novel Writing Month, which happens every November.
“I told my roommates not to let me do it this year, but I was waiting for my Italian class to start, and I saw a guy staring at a girl and wondered if he actually liked her without knowing her,” said the UF junior majoring in English and specializing in creative writing. “That was my inspiration.”
Montana’s novel is about a man named Chase who made eye contact with a woman in a bookstore, felt a connection and returned every day in hopes of seeing her again.
She completed her novel late Tuesday, making it the third consecutive year she has won NaNoWriMo.
“The best part about doing it in the middle of all my schoolwork is thinking, ‘Aw, college isn’t so bad, college isn’t so rough because I just finished a novel in 30 days,’” she said.
Each area that participates in the event has a municipal liaison who hosts write-ins, which allows participants to come together for encouragement and support amid writing challenges, Montana said.
UF assistant librarian and former co-municipal liaison for NaNoWriMo Stacey Ewing said 25 to 50 writers participated in the UF-sponsored write-ins last year.
This year, Gainesville had no liaison, but students and community members found a way to participate through the local NaNoWriMo Facebook page. People attended write-ins at Coffee Culture, Ewing said.
Write-ins were also held by the Alachua County Library, said Alachua County eBranch librarian Gail Carr. The library group met each Tuesday this month at the downtown Alachua branch.
“We all chatted just a bit at the beginning and during a couple of breaks, but mostly we just pounded away on our laptops while still enjoying being in the company of other writers,” Carr said, adding that she hopes for a better turnout next year.
In order to stay on top of her word count on her own this year, Montana wrote 10,000-word installments, which she called “cushions.” That discipline helped her finish the novel early, but other writers are still dealing with the 11:59:59 p.m. Friday deadline.
But even though she completed a novel, Montana’s work was not done.
Her reward for finishing, she said, was starting an essay.
