NaNo Technology


Wherein Our Heroine Admits She is No Novelist.
It's November - and you know what that means, right? No? Neither did I, until recently. So I'll let you in on the secret. It's NaNoWriMo.

What do you mean, "What the heck is that?" Isn't it obvious? Well, no, it wasn't obvious to me either. Here's the scoop. It's National Novel Writing Month. Over 40,000 people have signed up to write a 50,000-word (175-page) novel between November 1 and November 30. Quality is not an issue. It's all about output, working under the premise that in too many cases creativity gets bogged down by editing. Last year, only 14% of the participants cranked out the required number of words to reach the finish line. Since the project started in 1999, two "Wrimos" have had their work professionally published.

It is an interesting idea. Freeing yourself from the question, "Why do I do this?" long enough to reach an arbitrary goal does bring its own rewards (I should know - you're reading the result of just such a fling at the unknown). It would certainly disabuse some of the notion that novel writing is something they can do (the "everyone has a novel in him" idea).

Am I doing it? No. Kind friends have suggested that I write one, but if I have a novel in me somewhere, I can't locate where that might be. Maybe I broke my novel when I whacked my foot.
Posted: Tuesday - November 09, 2004 at 07:36 AM         | |

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