NaNoWriMo...and no, that's not gibberish.

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). I kid you not, it is an actual celebrated thing. And it's a cool thing on top of it. Basically, the idea behind NaNoWriMo is that a lot of people have the dream of writing a book. But the problem is life interferes. Everyone has jobs, family commitments, school, soccer games, dinners to cook, laundry to wash, etc. (Just as a quick aside -- even once you've written a book, that stuff still pops up. I think before I got published I thought if I could just get my book out there then somehow all this other stuff would fall into place and make writing the next one so much easier. It doesn't. And a good thing too. As Stephen King points out, art should revolve around life, not the other way around. Or he says something like that. I'm wildly paraphrasing again. Basically that writing should be a reflection of life, so life has to come first. And he's right.)

So, the good folks at NaNoWriMo have come up with a solution. You want to write a book? Give yourself thirty days. Starting November 1 at midnight, join thousands of other writers in writing their novels. The goal? 50,000 words by November 30 at midnight.

Frankly, what stops most writers is fear. Fear that it won't be good enough, fear that it's a waste of time or energy because you won't be able to accomplish the goal of an entire book. NaNoWriMo doesn't allow time for fear. You have a deadline to meet!

No assertions of quality are made. You don't have to write a great book in 30 days, just a book. Actually, more likely a draft. I believe that this program ascribes to Anne Lamott's theory of "Write a shitty first draft." Which basically means, don't let fear stop you. Put it all down on the page, revel in the crappiness of it. Because it's only once you've got it all down there that you can see what you have and what's worth keeping and what's not. (Read Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott. I love it. It is quite simply the most helpful book on writing that I have ever read.)

And once you have 50,000 words on the page, are you going to put it aside? Heck no, that's a lot of effort. And 50,000 is technically long enough to be a novel and if you find you still have more story to tell when you reach that point, all the better. Participants can register at NaNoWriMo and if they reach their goal, they will be put in some kind of Hall of Fame, I believe. But here's my thought -- even if you don't quite reach 50,000, it's still probably more progress on your novel in a month that you normally would have made, right?

Blogger is adding a new twist this year by encouraging participants to set up novel blogs, where they can post progress on their novels. There's an article about it here. If you can't read it (I'm not sure if it's for registered blog owners only or not), let me know. You don't have to use Blogger to participate in NaNoWriMo. I couldn't because I'm uncomfortable with sharing my writing before it reaches a certain stage. I like being able to wallow in the mess of it until I can figure out what's going on. But with NaNoWriMo, you don't have to show your writing to anyone. Progress is updated on the honor system. And if you reach the goal of 50,000, they have some kind of method to check without reading your stuff.

I think NaNoWriMo is a great program. Sometimes all you need is a reason to start and keep going. Anybody out there who's thinking about or has thought about writing a book, consider NaNoWriMo. It's just one month out of your life to achieve a huge, wonderful goal. Think about it : ) By the way, you are allowed to create notes and outlines ahead of time, just no actual writing on the book until November 1 at midnight, for those who were wondering...

Talk to you tomorrow!