It's mid October. Do you know what that means? It means that there is less than a month left until the start of National Novel Writing Month (NANOWRIMO).
Before you roll your eyes and walk away, just give me a minute to make a crazy proposition.
I dare you to write a 50,000 word novel in a month.
'Huh?' is probably your reaction. Here's an excerpt from the official
NaNo website to provide clarification:
"National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 50,000-word novel by midnight, November 30.Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly."
If you're still not persuaded, let me just point out that people of all ages, from all disciplines have attempted (and in many cases, won) the nanowrimo challenge. the NaNo community is a supportive, helpful bunch of many different kinds of people, artists, writers, gamers... and even people who have no interest or experience in writing. You don't need a full, detailed plot, you don't need to have every single event laid out. Just start writing, and keep going!
I've participated since 2007, and won every year, even though writing isn't really one of my hobbies. It may seem crazy, especially for university students like us, but NaNo recently implemented a helpful guide for post-secondary students on time management. If you think about it, there are a lot of times during the day when you have a few minutes to spare, whether it be on the bus ride to school if you're off-campus, or in the 10 minutes before a class begins, or perhaps just before you go to bed. It's possible to fit a couple hundred words into that time, and those words will gradually add up until, before you know it, you've written a whole novel. Not gonna lie, there's going to be a lot of sleepless, caffeine-filled, stressful nights of "AHH I'M BEHIND ON MY WORD COUNT BUT THERE'S A MIDTERM TOMORROW!" but how often do you hear people boasting to you that they've written a novel in a month?
It really is a great experience and a whole lot of fun, especially if you can drag a few good friends into doing it with you.
Give it a shot! Whether you win or lose, it's something you'll never forget.
And, if that's not enough to persuade you... well, okay, so there IS a prize initiative, but it's tentative as of now; for the past few years, Createspace has been offering to print and mail winners (free of charge) one free proof copy of their novels. the offer has been good for 6 months after november in the past, so there's plenty of time to edit before you submit your manuscript to be printed. Sound good?
