NaNoWriMo

National Novel Writitn Month takes place in November of each year. The idea is that you sign up (for free) on the website (nanowrimo.org) and you challenge yourself to write a novel in thirty days, beginning on November 1 and ending on November 30. The novel length is a 50,000 word count which is actually more of a novella than a novel. It is a challenge and it is fun.

Last year I participated in it for the first time. It was a challenge I made to myself and although I had nothing to gain or lose by completing the challenge or not completing it, it meant a lot to me. I wanted to prove to myself that I could do it; that I could focus on the project and complete it.

I reached 51,565 words in the early afternoon of day 21! Although I wasn’t finished with the complete novel, I had reached my goal and I was able to settle down, relax, and have a pleasant Thanksgiving with my kids, three days later. After Thanksgiving, I tackled it again and ended up with about 59,000 and a completed story by midnight of November 30.

There are some tricks and tips to completing the task:

First, the task is the word count, i.e., quantity not quality. It serves as good writing practice and it can also get rid of all the muck in the system so you can get on with a quality piece later on.

Second, you can increase word count by giving your chapters names instead of numbers; giving your characters long names (like Mr. Jonathan Winthrop Perkins or Professor Charles Edward “Sparky” Williams); you can give one of your recurring characters a stuttering problem that will allow you to repeat words; you can have a character recount a conversation to another character or maybe in a diary entry; you can have a character with a habit of saying something like, “Let me get this straight. You mean you met in college in a drama class and you’ve secretly admired him all these years although you’ve always been apart? You haven’t seen each other in twenty years but you’ll be seeing him at the reunion? Wow! What a story!”

Another suggestion to keep the words flowing is that you can type IN ALL CAPS the text you want to come back to later on. This way it will stand out to you when you go back to edit. For example, you can type something like “FIND A NAME FOR THIS RESTAURANT” or “RESEARCH THE DISTANCE IN MILES BY CAR BETWEEN BLAIR POINT AND LAKE TIMMONS.”

There are more suggestions available on the website (nanowrimo.org). It’s not too late to sign up. There are also Forums on a wide variety of subjects than can be very helpful (plot, character, dialogue, descriptions, etc.) and you can sign up for a number of genres, provided it is fiction (chick lit, sci-fi, fantasy, historical drama, literary fiction, etc.). You can even go on and post a question such as “I have a character that attends a private Ivy League university. What are some activities they would do for fun on campus?” If you have time, you can browse the questions and post a reply. You’ll be helping a writer!

All of this means that I will be pretty busy during the month of November and may not be posting much here. I will try to come back and post updates on my word count.