Nano Mega, Mega Nano, Yowza
I was reading Souls Road and ran into this:
I haven't written any fiction in a very long time....I signed up for Nano in November....
Me being the ignorant and forgetful one, I asked myself, "What is this Nano"?
After several false starts, I ended up here:
National Novel Writing Month is now over. If you played along, the goal was to create a first draft of at least 50,000 words in a month. And even if you didn't, I know your little secret~you have a Really Shitty First Draft of something lying around somewhere. Perhaps it's your NaNo novel; perhaps it's something you've just boxed up for awhile....
And then I ended up here:
What is NaNoWriMo?
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 175-page (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.
Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.
As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and -- when the thing is done -- the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.
In 2004, we had over 42,000 participants. Nearly 6000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.
It sounds intriguing. Instead of writing bad short stuff, I could write bad long stuff.
Remind me next October.
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