National Novel Writing Month - Nanowrimo

There is an exciting phenomenon that is called “Nanowrimo” by it’s followers, short for National Novel Writing Month. If you are a writer of any kind and you haven’t check this out, you really should. Most of my published work is non-fiction, though like many article writers, I have a long-term desire to write fiction. It’s such a primal thing, to tap into those creative juices and go! And, probably like some others out there, I have a couple of manuscripts sitting half-done. They were attempts to write full-length fiction novels that I never quite finished. My therapist thinks this is due to fear of success. I think that this could be slightly correct, but I think it’s off a bit. If success meant getting paid well to do what I love, I don’t think I truly fear it all that much. I do have some fear of the limelight, but that’s another story… What I really think, though, is that I’m afraid of the re-write process. Maybe afraid isn’t even the right work. I dread the re-write process. I like the writing process for the most part, though I do sometimes get tired of working on the same project for too long. I enjoy the research process, though it sometimes feels scary since I might do all this “free” research that never turns into anything publishable and feel that I’ve wasted all that time. Still- the bottom line is that you are not going to have a shot at publishing a novel or a book-length non-fiction work if you don’t ever finish even the rough draft of one. To me, that is where Nanowrimo can be a lifesaver.

The goal in Nanowrimo is to write a 50,000 word novel in one month. For many writers, this sounds downright impossible. If you actually look at the math as well as the success of the program, it works. To write 50,000 words would mean completing approximately 175 pages. That means you’ve got to write about 1667 words a day every single day. Give or take, that’s about 5-6 pages per day. I would be that during school, you’ve crammed the writing of a research paper into a few hours and written way more than 6 pages in a fairly short time. Probably not GOOD pages, but pages nonetheless! Even many well known writers would say that their first draft is a piece of crap anyway, so why worry too much about good in the beginning? Instead, get that fetal book on paper. Get the whole thing created, with all its fingers and toes. To actually write that number of pages every single day for 30 straight days, you won’t have time to worry about much beyond its basic form. The beauty of it is, though, that at the end of a feverish month of writing, you will actually have a book.

The other cool thing about Nanowrimo is that you can go about it a couple of different ways. You can pick a month (they suggest that you really do start on the 1^st day of a month) and you can do it on your own. The creator of Nanowrimo has written a book to guide you through the process one bit at a time. It’s called “No Plot? No Problem.” Or, you can do Nanowrimo with the entire nation in the month of November. This can be very exciting and writing groups will pop up everywhere with people trying to get that book finished in that month. I would still recommend the “No Plot? No Problem” book even if you plan to write along with everyone else in November. The book can really get you through some dark spots. I only discovered this project a few months ago myself and I bought the book and tried it on my own once and made it only halfway through a manuscript again. But, I want to try it again in November with the crowd, and since I’m thinking about it now I wanted to share this with you. You’ll find the official Nanowrimo website at www.nanowrimo.org so check it out and think about it. If you decide to do it before November, feel free to comment here and let us know how it goes! I’m sure I’ll be blogging about this again when I try it again. Happy writing!