Anyone doing National Novel Writing Month this year?

[orator]

http://www.nanowrimo.org/

For those who don't know, it's a contest that a bunch of crazy people do to see if they can write a 50,000 word novel in one month.

Anyone trying this year? I'm doing it for the first time and so far it's fun and really daunting, and I'm sure by the end of the month I'll be insane and will have printed out my half-written novel only to burn it. I've been a day ahead in my quota so far, but I have a feeling I'm going to fall behind soon.

[Pat K]

I think my girlfriend was planning on doing this. It seems pretty fun.

I won't be participating, but I'm going to try to ride some of the momentum by making November my "finally hammer out that zine that you've been dicking around with" month. Not really the same thing, but at least it's being productive, right?

Keep us updated on your progress, orator.

[JustNicole]

I've always wanted to do it but November rolls around and I always run out of steam.  Good luck to you, though!

[orator]

It's day 4. I'm 7,000 words in, and the stats say that's around 30 pages.

What in the world am I doing?

Why did I think this was a good idea? A fun idea?


26 days to go.


Oh God.

[DoodleJump!]

No offense to anyone at all, but I do not see how this could be fun in the least. First of all, to try and write an entire novel in a month? Second of all, to make that novel any good? Don't think I would do it. But more power to you.

[orator]

I don't think the novel is supposed to be good. I think it's just an exercise to get your creative juices flowing and to experiment with writing, constantly, for a month, and maybe even improve your craft in the process.

I do think whoever started it could have picked a better month to do it in. There's only one month that could have been worse, and that's December.

Anyways. I go back and forth between panicking and enjoying it a lot, so I'm glad I did it. And then tomorrow morning I'll panic again. And so on and so forth until December rolls by and I'll be free.

[emma]

No offense to anyone at all, but I do not see how this could be fun in the least. First of all, to try and write an entire novel in a month? Second of all, to make that novel any good? Don't think I would do it. But more power to you.

You're right, but it's also a super fun exercise not only because of the stuff that orator mentioned but because if you finish you finish with a draft that you can work on and expand and mess around with for as long as you'd like. A lot of the time it's hard to actually do major work on the novel you've got in your head - finding time is difficult, feeling motivated when you're not is even worse. Sometimes something like this can be a really helpful shove in the right direction.

That said, anyone who is doing this is completely nuts.

[Ike]

My wife took part in the nation a poetry version of this (right a poem a day for a month).  The exercise, as well as the ritual of it, worked wonders for her.  She also liked the submission process.  From that batch of poems, I think 2 or 3 were picked up in journals, too.  It's absolutely great.   

[DoodleJump!]

As a non-writer then, perhaps I just miss the point.