In two hours, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo to those in the know) will begin. In two hours, people all over the globe will start typing furiously in an effort to complete a 50,000-word manuscript by the end of November. So will I. It’s pretty insane; the goal is to write 1667 words every day for a month. You don’t agonize over them, you just type. The goal is not to produce a work of stunning literary genius, but to simply force oneself to start writing.
I started participating in NaNo in 2003, I think. A group of my friends enticed me into it with promises of camraderie and boozy write-ins. It was that during that November that I made two happy discoveries:
1.) I cannot write under the influence of alcohol. One glass of wine invites the muse to come a little closer, but any more than that? She flees from me faster than a reality tv star fleeing a marriage.
2.) Peer pressure is my best friend as far as churning out words. My group had long, hilarious email conversations. We sent each other the best and worst sentences we’d written each day. We commiserated about our low wordcounts, lack of plots, and work getting in the way of our noveling.
Most Fridays in November we got together for dinner and cocktails and tried to write. That first year was glorious, so we did it again. And again. And again.
I was active until about 2008, after which I went to grad school to study creative writing. I figured that getting my MFA in fiction was incentive enough to write like a demon every day. But now that my writing program is over I’m NaNoing again. My project this year ain’t the Great American Novel. It can’t be – there are dinosaurs. Hell, it’s not even the Great American Novel With Dinosaurs, because Michael Crichton already wrote that book. It is, however, a promising manuscript I’ve wanted to finish for years. I started it during NaNoWriMo three or four years ago.
This is the year I finish it.
I’m so thoroughly tempted this year… although I feel like being out of town for the entire first week of November is not a good omen for my completion rate. Good excuse to actually write, though.
Definitely do it! Even if you don’t make 50,000 by the end of the month, it’s worth doing.
If I did this I would lose my mind. I hope you have a good, productive time.
Losing your mind is half the fun. Though honestly, I try not to take the quality of the draft I write in November too seriously.
You will finish this year! I’ve decided to participate again this year, but I have no idea what I’m going to write. NO IDEA.
You will finish as well! If it makes you feel any better, I have no clue how I’m going to begin this rewrite. I haven’t looked at my novel in four years.
Well, it’s my belief that no novel can be considered among the ranks of The Great American Novel unless it HAS dinosaurs.
That is true, but most readers do not share your sophistication.