I've seen the acronym NaNoWriMo thrown around at this time of year for a couple of years now. Due to a momentary brain fart where I couldn't remember what it meant or be bothered to Google it, so I posted a Note on here, asking what it was. Claire, (aka Clearstar), provided the answer:
"national novel writing month..50, 000 words at least."
So... I checked out the website to see what it had to say for itself and found this...
"National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.
In 2008, we had over 120,000 participants. More than 20,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.
So, to recap:
What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.
Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.
Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.
When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins."
And this morning I saw a link on Twitter to this video:
To be honest though, I had already decided to take the plunge!
Those of you reading this who are participating, feel free to add me to your buddy list.
And for those of you not participating, please feel free to follow my progress and throw out the odd encouraging Comment when my brain hurts!
Right now, as I write this entry I have no idea what I'm going to write, or even how close to the 50k target I'll get, but I'm not going into it with a set purpose in mind, other than to see what I end up with, for better or worse, come December 1st!
So... I figured that I would get little, if anything, done when the kids were about, but so far, no inspiration and no words! I looked at all of the story stubs I have on my HDD and all seemed like they were written by a ten year old! I have a few handwritten story stubs to peruse, so I think I'll go ahead and get them on Word so that one of them may inspire me to use it, or just inspire me in general!
Worst thing is that by some miracle, the kids were asleep by about 8pm last night, but did I write? Hell no, I busied myself on a variety of online distractions, the most major of which was trying to finish the "renovation" of my farm on the Facebook game, Farm Town... *facepalm*
When I do finally start writing, I'll add a widget or two to the original post to track my progress, (if Multiply's coding rules allow).
I put up my first word count yesterday... 407! That's right... there's no digits missing...!
I figured that through the day, when the kids are at school and its kind of quiet I'd get a ton of writing done, but the inspiration is not there, whether I am looking at the page or not. Ah well... we shall see what transpires over the rest of the month...
