This post originally appeared on the Oregon News Incubator blog.
Since Thursdays are when ONI hosts our more literary-focused work party at Caffe Autogrill, and since I’m currently mired in a manuscript re-write, I thought I’d post today about one of a fiction writer’s best friends:
You’ve been thinking about writing a novel for most of your adult life, but you never seem to get around to putting pen to paper or fingers to keyboard. Here?s your opportunity.
50,000 words in 30 days. It sounds intimidating. Impossible, even. But it can be done ? novelists all over the globe make it happen every year. I first gave it a shot in 2004, and I keep coming back. It’s a challenge every time, but worth it. You can write 1667 words per day, every day. Or you can write 12,500 words every weekend and take the weekdays off. Or you can procrastinate most of the month and not even start until November 23rd, and still get it done. Whatever floats your boat.
Here’s a summary of 2009’s contest, from the NaNoWriMo website:
In 2009, we had over 165,000 participants. More than 30,000 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?s hard work, and it?s its own brand of literary insanity. It?s tremendous fun, and at the end of the month, you?ve actually accomplished something ? even though this is a first draft, and all first drafts are crap. Really. It?s true. (I’ll be blogging more about this in the weeks to come.)
One of the most popular features of the NaNo website is the online forums. They?ve got a discussion group for pretty much everything, and threads on topics you?d never dream up on your most colorful acid trip. Need an expert to tell you how to test the age of primitive artifacts carved from igneous rock? Chances are there?s another writer on the boards who is also a geologist or archaeologist. (I had this exact problem back in 2005, and I had no fewer than ten fellow writers jump in to help.)
Made a funny typo ? or just wrote something that makes absolutely no sense whatsoever ? and want to share it? There is a HUGE thread devoted to these ?Nanoisms,? and reading these postings often has me laughing so hard that I’ve got tears running down my face — and surfing that thread is a great way to procrastinate doing actual writing.
Want to challenge your writing buddies? Make a pact that whoever gets to the 50,000-word goal last has to scrub everyone else?s toilets. Or sit down together to write, after you?ve each drunk two liters of Mountain Dew, and whoever has to get up to use the bathroom first has to streak across the parking lot shouting, ?I am a Greek God!? at the top of his/her lungs. Or find a funny character or phrase and challenge your buddies to include that in their plots. I successfully met my friend Terri Kleinberg?s 2007 challenge to include the word ?gastronomically? in a story about vampires; I?m still waiting for her to throw a couple of were-monkeys (or L. Ron Hubbard reincarnating as a talking marshmallow) into one of her tales.
Want to get together with fellow NaNo?ers in your area for a write-in at a local coffee shop? They?ve got these going on all month, all over the world — and ONI has those Thursday morning work parties…. Portland has its own online NaNo forum, and historically boasts one of the largest writer contingents on the planet. If your city or town doesn?t have its own forum, start one.
So, tell me again why you?re not jumping in to do this? Afraid you might not make it? Well, of course you won?t, not with that attitude. Plenty of writers try and fail each year with NaNoWriMo, and they?re back again the next year, and the next. The point is committing to it and giving it an honest shot.
You?ve got a few weeks yet to prepare for this — though plenty of writers start NaNoWriMo (and succeed!) with only a very vague idea (or no idea at all) what they’re going to write about. Find a copy of NaNo founder Chris Baty?s No Plot? No Problem! ? a great guide for writers in general, but specifically geared toward successfully navigating NaNoWriMo.
And if and when you do sign up on the NaNoWriMo website, let me know. Maybe we can be writing buddies. You can find my NaNoWriMo profile here.
If you find you can’t master the acronym, don’t worry. A writer friend of mine routinely struggles with it and ends up calling it Nanoo-nanoo (? la Mork from Ork) before exploding into a fit of giggles — every time.