A Novel Idea – National Novel Writing Month
It began sometime around 12:01 a.m. on November 1 at coffee shops and kitchen tables across the world. Writers crouched over laptops, stationary, or PCs, earphones blasting everything from Bach to Nickelback – inspirational music for those that answered the challenge.
Entering its eleventh year, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) has grown from a challenge among friends to a world-wide phenomenon. Last year over 119,000 people participated in the event, writing over 1.6 billion words. Of those, 21,683 finished a novel of 50,000 words or more in the 30 days of November. This year over 150,000 people worldwide are expected to participate.
For those that attempt the challenge, there are various support mechanisms to help. NaNoWriMo.org has a forums section where writers can plan local meet-ups. It also offers advice from members of the NaNoWriMo community that have succeeded in the past. For those that prefer to write in private, websites like Write or Die can provide motivation to produce a high word count in a short time (warning, be prepared to lose your work on Kamikaze Mode if you do not write fast enough).
Most participants will not finish. Whether it is lack of time, planning, or they just get bored, only a small percentage will complete the journey. Still, at this early stage, they are optimistic they will complete their novel in a month.
Those that do finish will have 11 months to edit their opus before seeing if they can repeat next year. Those that fail will learn what they can do better next year to prepare and possibly reverse their fortunes.
For everyone involved it will be an entertaining and challenging month.
You can follow Jason Dean’s progress on Twitter at @The_Dean. He will also produce a weekly update on his blog every Wednesday through NaNoWriMo.
