The month of November is declared National Novel Writing Month, also known as Nanowrimo. The challenge of Nanowrimo is to reach the goal of writing a fifty thousand word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30. This starts on November 1st, and takes writing about seventeen hundred words a day to reach the deadline. Goffstown High School student, Justin Scott Kaminski, decided to take on the challenge with help of GHS English teacher Curt Mcdermott. The novel in the making is scheduled to be called ‘Attack on Goffstown’ but it is subject to change.

On October 31st 2018, Justin Scott Kaminski was in his English 12 Honors class, when the class began writing gothic novels in honor of Halloween. After some brainstorming,the storyline he decided to on was a zombie apocalypse that has come over Goffstown. Mr.Mcdermott then proceeded to tell the class of  Nanowrimo, which sparked Justin’s Interest. “Originally I told him about it, and it was a challenge to prove to me that he could write fifty thousand words, and he got excited about it” reflected Mcdermott. Justin began writing daily but had encountered some setbacks, “Being in student council, put a lot on my plate and in order to reach my goal, I had to write a set amount of words each night. I was sixteen hundred words behind and it took 15 days to catch up… one day concluded of me writing four thousand words in one night”.

On November 29th of 2018 Justin was just about done with the journey that had taken so much free time. “I got up to forty-nine thousand nine hundred and ninety nine words and the only reason that I did not write the last word is because I wanted to do so with my entire english class who helped along the way”. Most of the writing was completed in free time while at home jamming out to music but some was also in class to get help from teachers and peers. Through the thirty days of November, Justin had learned many skills that he would not have learned if it were not for the life-changing month. “Life balancing was most important; so many people supported me and it really blew me away”.

The best part of a book is having people support the ideas that have been shared and the creativity. Justin has tried to incorporate almost everyone in the community that he can into his book. “I did a little something for everyone around me, by posting on my snapchat story that anyone who slides up can be featured in the book in some way, I thought it would be about fifty people but it was around one hundred and forty”. There has been so much support from everyone around, GHS Librarian Mrs.Mannon has agreed to publish Justin’s clean, edited novel in the GHS library for future students. Justin wants everyone to be excited to read and he believes that by writing something like this it will make kids read more, and to expand their vocabulary.

The support and experience of competing in Nanowrimo for Justin has created such a positive enforcement for himself. Mr.Mcdermott believes that the reason anyone can do nanowrimo is by “Shutting off the critical part of your brain that tells you the book is bad and you shouldn’t finish. Keep writing to be successful”. If anyone is to compete in next years Nanowrimo, they must be patient, stay organized and keep up with their writing. As an English Teacher, Mcdermott states that he is “Very proud of Justin for getting his friends involved in his novel and his social media advertisement is brilliant”. Justin wishes for “everyone to try this for themselves, and to prove that they can do exactly what they thought they couldn’t”.