Weekend Recovery: The NaNoWriMo Edition!
No, this isn't about gaming! But it's still pretty cool.
November, as some of you guys might be aware, is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for short. Put together ten years ago by the non-profit The Office of Letters and Light, NaNoWriMo is a month long challenge for amateur writers to take the plunge and put together their first novel.
The goal is to successfully complete 50,000 words between November 1st and November 30th. A creative writing exercise that tries to pull you away from the instinctive desire to edit and edit and edit and never get anything completed, the objective of the project is to just write at break-neck speed until you hit the end of your book, leaving the editing to be done later.
Though I've considered it in the past this is the first year I've decided to buckle down and get it done myself. I've already got the first 4000 words completed so I'm ahead of the daily goal of 1666. If you've been considering doing it you definitely should-- it doesn't matter if what you write is garbage, it's the point of getting it done that's the awesome part of the experience.
I know that some of our forum members are doing it so if you haven't started there's still plenty of time to pick it up without worrying about falling behind. If you want to add me as a writing buddy my own profile is here, and join the forums so we can all revel in the experience (both its highs and lows) together. And if you're doing it leave a comment so I can friend you too!
mixvio
Posted to Miscellany on 2 November 2009
· Comments (5)
Other stuff like this: nanowrimo, novels, weekend recovery, writing
Wish they had something like this for musicians (or if there is something like this for musicians, wish I knew about it.)
I'm participating this year for the first time - http://www.nanowrimo.org/eng/user/584421.
@raindog469 - I'm a musician as well, and I think we should start something like that!
I did this last year to prove to myself that yes I can write a book if I put my mind to it, seeing as I want to be a writer and all. The result? A book about a kind succubus who owns a brothel and her old rival who's trying to put her out of business. It turned out pretty funny, though copyediting will be the death of me.
I'm far too distracted by tabletop games this month to want to do this again, sadly, but at least I'm still being creative.
Good luck, everyone!
I have worked at a bookstore since 2006, and about a week after I got hired, we hired this girl Britt. I'm pretty sure the day she started (which incidentally was in the beginning of November) she's been talking about Nanowrimo. And every year I tell her the same thing: November's a horrible month for me to try and do something as monumental as writing a novel. As if working in retail during the holidays isn't a big enough time-constraint, some of the better video games all come out around this time of the year. This year I warned her plenty in advance, knowing of Dragon Age's Nov. 3 street date. Has not stopped her though.
This is a pretty awesome idea. Maybe it will finally get me and everyone else to get out that novel that's lurking somewhere in all of us...