NaNoWriMo Go!

July 8th, 2007

November is NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month, a phenomenon I just learned about last week through a book I picked up (“No Plot? No Problem”) by the guy who started the NaNoWriMo. The goal, such as it is, is to write a novel, defined as 50,000 generally cohesive and sequential words; it is very much about the act of writing and producing quantity, rather than creating An Important Piece of Literature.

Rather than wait until November, or, indeed, even start and end within a single month, my personal NaNoWriMo started July 5th and will go until August 5th. I’ve got a few hundred words in– a palpable start– and I’ve recruited one other person in on this journey already. And we’ve got a little side-wager on the event, as added incentive, so this should be an interesting month.

So finally I will be able to say, I’ve written a novel, my weighty collection of prose and poems notwithstanding (which, incidentally, falls just shy of 44,000 words, so we’ll call it “a good start”). Come August 5th, I’ll let you know how I’ve done…

Also in the spirit of the thing, I’ve dusted off the trusty iBook, because (a.) it doesn’t have nearly as many distractions on it as my well-abused PowerBook, and (b.) the “d” and “r” keys work a lot more regularly, which is much more conducive to quantity writing.

Entry Filed under: Literature