It's that time of year. Before the sugar rush of Halloween has begun to crash, writers all over the world will be neglecting their families, jobs, housekeeping, and personal hygiene to reach a challenging goal ... the NaNoWriMo.
For the unintiated, NaNoWriMo stands for "National Novel Writing Month" and the many, the demented, and the determined accept the challenge and attempt to crank out a 50,000 word novel in 30 days. It begins at the stroke of midnight November 1st and ends at 11:59 p.m. November 30.
What are the benefits? You write, write, and write some more, focusing on little else but writing in an effort to beat the clock. If you make it to 50,000 words, you win. What do you win? Bragging rights and a little banner to put on your web site or email or elsehwhere. Approximately 16% of the thousands of entrants actually reach the 50,000 word goal.
I encourage anyone who is serious about writing to give it a try. You can join up at the NaNoWriMo web site (linked above), and it's free. You can become as involved as you want to be, as much as joining a local chapter that meets weekly (or more) or just reading the forums or just locking yourself in your study space and shutting off the internet (it's a distraction) until you finish.
If you need some ideas, the founder of NaNoWriMo, Chris Baty, has written a book called No Plot? No Problem! explaining how to survive the NaNoWriMo successfully even if you have no clue what you're going to write about!
Good luck to any who are going for it. Be sure to stock up on coffee, water, granola bars, and your chocolate of choice. And don't forget to set up you soundtrack to write by ... music soothes the savage beast and titillates the writing muse (well, it does for me anyway) I'll see you in a month!
No comments:
Post a Comment