Stuff I like: NaNoWriMo

Now that we’re at the tail end of September, is it too soon to consider the approach of November? I think not. After all, November is National Novel Writing Month, better known by its jaunty abbreviation of NaNoWriMo. That alone makes me happier about winter’s approach. (I dread winter’s cold and dark days.)

NaNoWriMo challenges writers to write a novel—50,000 words—in a month. Last year there were 167,150 participants. Think this is impossible? It’s not. I did it last year and “won.” So did 32,177 other writers. I finished with 50,590 words of THE LILY MAID’s first draft (since extensively reworked and expanded to over 100,000 words).

Would I have gotten it together to start a novel otherwise? Perhaps, but doubtful. Knowing myself, I’d just put it off until a future date. Or until I felt more confident as a writer. In other words, probably never. The good people at NaNoWriMo acknowledge that most people have these same excuses reservations. They offer these wise counterarguments:

1) If you don’t do it now, you probably never will. Novel writing is mostly a “one day” event. As in “One day, I’d like to write a novel.” Here’s the truth: 99% of us, if left to our own devices, would never make the time to write a novel. It’s just so far outside our normal lives that it constantly slips down to the bottom of our to-do lists. The structure of NaNoWriMo forces you to put away all those self-defeating worries and START. Once you have the first five chapters under your belt, the rest will come easily. Or painfully. But it will come. And you’ll have friends to help you see it through to 50k.

2) Aiming low is the best way to succeed. With entry-level novel writing, shooting for the moon is the surest way to get nowhere. With high expectations, everything you write will sound cheesy and awkward. Once you start evaluating your story in terms of word count, you take that pressure off yourself. And you’ll start surprising yourself with a great bit of dialogue here and a ingenious plot twist there. Characters will start doing things you never expected, taking the story places you’d never imagined. There will be much execrable prose, yes. But amidst the crap, there will be beauty. A lot of it.

3) Art for art’s sake does wonderful things to you. It makes you laugh. It makes you cry. It makes you want to take naps and go places wearing funny pants. Doing something just for the hell of it is a wonderful antidote to all the chores and “must-dos” of daily life. Writing a novel in a month is both exhilarating and stupid, and we would all do well to invite a little more spontaneous stupidity into our lives.”

I can attest that all of this is true. NaNoWriMo is life-changing. It’s also a lot of fun, which is reason enough to participate imho.

Though I won’t be participating in National Novel Writing Month this year—instead, I’ll be doing a private National Novel Editing Month as I revise my novel—I’ve been encouraging all of my writer friends to participate. I’m envious of the wonderful time they’ll be having, but it would be difficult to abandon THE LILY MAID at this point to jump into another narrative—like leaving a baby in the bathwater without supervision.

So, think you have a novel inside you? (Of course you do!) Are you ready to jump into a month of literary abandon? (I hope so!) Can you stand so much creativity? (Mais oui!) Good news: the 2010 NaNoWriMo website will be live at the end of the week for you to sign up for free. Then you can use October to outline or research your novel in preparation for November.

Let me know if you do. I’ll be cheering from the sidelines.

ETA: The 2010 site is now live!

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