Perphaps you’ve heard it, perhaps you haven’t: November is coming and November is National Novel Writing Month, affectionately known by previous participants as NaNoWriMo.
Starting in the pre-dawn hours of November 1st and running until the final moments of November 30th, National Novel Writing Month challenges everyone (not just Americans) to write a 50,000 word novel – about 175 pages, for the uninitiated – in one month, start to finish. For those of us with school, work, or other semblances of a life, it’s a seemingly insurmountable task. For those without, it looks just as bad. Yet Chris Baty, the creator of NaNoWriMo, is expecting 40,000 participants this year.
Participants and organizers alike emphasize that the goal of NaNoWriMo is not to turn out a ready-for-immediate-publishing book in thirty days; but strictly to drag, kicking and screaming if necessary, 50,000 words out of your Muse. As the title of Baty’s new book explains: No Plot? No Problem! Baty admits shamelessly that the goal is quantity, not quality.
And that’s really the allure of NaNoWriMo. If you’re one of the winners, even if it’s 50,000 incoherent words about events that don’t really go anywhere, you still get to call yourself “Novelist.”
It’s not too late to sign-up (registration runs until November 30th, after all), go to regional write-ins with fellow NaNo-ers and finally write the first draft of that Great American Novel you’ve been promising us for years.
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