Friday, November 5, 2010

NaNoWriMo

The challenge, frustration and fun.

Since most of my present readers are not writers I thought it would be a great time to introduce NaNoWriMo. It stands for National Novel Writing Month and was first started in 1999. The idea is that writers and want-to-be-writers set aside time from midnight November 1st to 11:59 PM November 30th for a daunting challenge. One story, 50,000 words. It is much harder than you might think.

To make it easier they stress that this is not about making a perfect story or even an edited story. The website boasts 'No Plot? No Problem!' This is about diving in and just getting something new written.

The first year only 21 people picked up the challenge. Ten years later, it grew to over 170,000 and over 2.4 billion words were written by the participants. This only counts the ones that signed up on the official website, something that I did not do. Then again, last year I didn't finish either.

This year Kris and I have decided to join the official group for the first time. I will be starting on a brand new sequel to my first novel and Kris is writing a new detective story. Both projects have been on the back burner due to us working through edits on earlier stories. We'll get back to those later, but for now it is refreshing to have something fresh to start.

Watching from the outside last year, it was impressive how supportive the other writers are. Everyone 'wins' this contest by simply writing 50,000 words on one story. Any genre counts, even fan fiction. People band together in coffee shops, internet chat rooms, and anywhere that they can find a fellow writer to help each other cross to the finish line. During the month of November blogs that have stayed silent for months will start up again with new frustrations or inspirations that the challenge brings. Writing is a very solo experience for many of us but NaNoWriMo acts against that. For one short month we are all together.

Wish both of us luck and I'll keep you posted on our progress!


Lindsay-6,644

Kris-5,012

NaNoWriMo Goal for today's date-8,335 words

We're a bit behind already!

5 comments:

  1. That's an interesting concept - sort "Art for art's sake." I do so much writing at work, I don't like to think about writing at home. Maybe when I retire I'll dabble at writing the great American novel. I wish you would get published so we could read your work.

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  2. Kris and I have decided to take some of my projects that have failed to get me an agent and e-publish them ourselves. It is kind of a new and controversial move. February 2011 I will be publishing my first novel, A Taste of Honey.

    However it is worth warning people that as quiet and prudish as I might seem in person, my historical romance novels are more than a bit steamy. They do have sex scenes that made one of my best friends blush and stammer, and she is used to reading romance novels.

    I am considering writing a short story for some of my friends and family members who are not interested in the genre that I have chosen. If I decide to commit to that goal, I'll let you know ASAP.

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  3. Sounds good...let us know what you choose. I've read some "r-rated" books...however, they probably weren't considered romance novels. But, hey, what do I care...it's fiction. I read a mafia non-fiction book about the time I was graduating from high school. I don't think anything you can write will top that one. But I might be wrong, too. LOL

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  4. Just for the record, I'm at 9,000 words now, which is more than my lovely and talented wife. Just Sayin'

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  5. Very interesting. 50,000 words is daunting. The most I've ever done is a short story in the 5,000 word range. But I've got lots of story ideas. I'm a bit too late to try this challenge now, but I do have it on the calendar for next year. We'll see what happens. I can still be cheerleader for you and Kris, however, "GO TEAM GO!!!"

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