Do you dream of writing the Great American Novel? Maybe you're a novice who'd like to try your hand at writing fiction. Or you may be looking for a kick in the pants to finally finish the story that's been knocking around in your head for years. November is coming, and that means NaNoWriMo. What the heck is NaNoWriMo, you ask?
Every year during NaNoWriMo -- National Novel Writing Month -- participants set a goal to write 50,000 words in 30 days. The starting gun goes off at the stroke of midnight on November 1st, and the orgainizers call pencils down at 11:59 p.m. on November 30th! The purpose of this month of intensive writing is to get participants moving in the right direction with their wiritng practice, and to have fun doing it. The aim is not to have a polished story by the end of the month, but to have a piece of work to start revising. No one is promising you'll end the month with a masterpiece, but you just may start down the path to your own best work by writing a bad first draft in a mad dash to the November 30th finish line!
Just a few published books that began life as NaNoWriMo experiments include, Modern Girls by Jennifer S. Brown, The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell, The God Patent by Ransom Stephens, and Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. You can find the full list of traditionally published NaNoWriMo novels (398 and counting) and the list of self-published NaNoWriMo novels (212 to date) here: http://nanowrimo.org/published-wrimos.
In October, many veteran WriMo novelists begin planning their novel: outlining, organizing writing groups, reading craft books or fiction to emulate, and getting geared up to put pen to paper beginning November 1st. Find out everything you've ever wanted to know about NaNoWriMo at their website, http://nanowrimo.org/. Then join us for our NaNoWriMo Kickoff on October 28th to finish up your novel planning, and meet other writers in our online space dedicated to Mechanics' Institute's NaNoWriMo participants at http://www.milibrary.org/bookgroup/. If you'd like to join this virtual group, contact me at [email protected] and I'll set you up with a login and a username.
Allons-y!
