"I鈥檝e Always Called Myself a Writer"
It鈥檚 mid-November, and Jill Giambruno, a first-year health science major, has a lot on her mind. Yes, there are papers and final projects to complete, and those are her top priority. But she鈥檚 also thinking about six college students spending a week together in a ski lodge鈥攐r maybe it鈥檚 a beach house? She hasn鈥檛 decided yet. The six students, a brother and sister and their friends, are characters in A Week Lost, a novel that Giambruno is writing as part of National Novel Writing Month. For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo, as it鈥檚 called, is a nonprofit that encourages people to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November.
This year, some 400,000 writers from all over the world are taking part鈥攊ncluding Giambruno, who is making her fourth attempt to complete an entire book in one month. Her previous tries resulted in one novel, Life In Between, and two narratives that fizzled out. Meeting the goal requires cranking out 1,667 words a day 鈥� about six pages, double spaced. Is she nuts? Her friends on campus think so. 鈥淭hey say, 鈥楢re you kidding me? Every day you sit down and do that?鈥欌�� Well, yes. 鈥淚鈥檝e always called myself a writer,鈥� she says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 always been a way I identify myself.鈥� She also identifies herself as a medic. She鈥檚 a volunteer EMT who serves with a fire department in her Bethel, Connecticut, hometown. At Keene State, she hopes to gain entrance into the nursing program.
As it happens, her passions for health care and writing sometimes overlap: She gets story ideas through her EMT work. 鈥淚 meet people in the raw, having emotional experiences,鈥� she says. 鈥淭his could be the worst day of their life.鈥� At the moment, Giambruno is behind in her NaNoWriMo word count, and she realizes she may not be able to wrap up the novel in one month. But she鈥檚 invested enough that she plans to continue working on it. She wants to know where her characters are headed. 鈥淭hey control me; it鈥檚 not the other way around,鈥� she says. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have much say in the matter.鈥�