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I'm getting way too hung up on what to say here. I imagine I'll write about the square-jaw phenomenon, the firefighter thing, and how many times I see the library guy, and anything weird that happens when I go to the store. Something weird always happens when I go to the store. Just a couple of days ago, I used the self-checkout at Wal-Mart and didn't screw it up. So weird.

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Booking It in a Month

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Contributed by: Sarah Pottenger on 10/10/2006

Crazy. She was absolutely crazy.

That's what I thought when I read an e-mail from my friend Sara two years ago. She's nuts.

It was a challenge. "Your friend Sara challenges you to write a novel in thirty days!" Whatever. A novel in 30 days? I had been slaving for over a year on my most recent project, and it wasn't even close to completion. How could anyone write a whole book in a month?

The answer is 9,769. That is the number of winners last year registered with National Novel Writing Month. Called NaNoWriMo by its participants, the phenomenon that began seven years ago with a small group of writers in Oakland, CA is now international, with 250 official chapters around the world.

What is NaNoWriMo exactly? Every November, participants try to write a novel in thirty day. From November 1 to midnight on November 30, participants strive to hit the 50,000-word goal. That comes out to about 1700 words a day, which is around six double-spaced pages.

Founder Chris Baty believes that the creation of a deadline in this deadline-driven world pushes people to write that ordinarily would have stayed "someday writers" (as in "someday I'll write a novel"). And I have found that the creation of an insane deadline pushes procrastinating, perfectionist writers to actually finish something. By stressing quantity over quality, NaNoWriMo gives its writers the freedom that can only come from lowering one's expectations.

I thought it was crazy. But I went to the NaNoWriMo website anyway to check it out. What I read amazed me. Thousands of people with families and full-time jobs cleared their calendars not just once, but every November, to write a novel. Certainly I could do it myself. What clinched it for me was the unbearable thought of Sara finishing a novel before me. I couldn't let that happen. We had to at least tie.

So I signed up. It was October, and the rules state that you shouldn't do too much planning before you begin writing. I put together a few characters and didn't even think much about the plot. On Halloween, the fretting began in earnest. All evening I kept mumbling about sitting down to write the next day. Would I really have a novel at the end of the month?

Let me just end all the illusions right here. It wasn't easy. There were plenty of torturous days with very little output. I had to deal with eyestrain, numb-butt, and neck pain. I consumed a ridiculous amount of caffeine and caught up on years of web surfing as a procrastinating tool. But at 5 pm on November 30, 2004, I had 50,100 words, and my story was finished. It isn't great--I'm still working on revision--but it's complete, and it isn't bad. It will be ready to send to publishers soon.

In 2005, I signed up again. Now that I knew I could do it, I was ready to go. Fellow writers had given me tips on combating eyestrain and numb-butt, and I constructed a more comfortable setup with my laptop. I reached the 50,000-word goal a week early, but my story wasn't finished. It's still not finished.

This year I'm ready. I have a great idea that I'm very excited to write about. It's only with great restraint that I haven't started writing yet. I'm back to murder mysteries--that's what my 2004 novel was. And I'm eager to see my fellow NaNo'ers.

That's the thing that makes NaNoWriMo one of a kind. A community springs up around it every November. The web site contains heavily trafficked forums, where you can find an answer to almost any research question, find suggestions for everything from your opening line to your title to the plot itself, and you can find other participants where you are.

There are 149 writers currently affiliated with the Colorado Springs area, and we get together often to meet in person. The kickoff party is always in late October, put together by the municipal liaisons who are in charge of events for our area. We show up to eat, socialize, and talk about our novels. Writing is so often a very solitary activity, and when writers get to talk to other writers, it's heaven.

The municipal liaisons also schedule write-ins throughout the month of November, in an effort to boost productivity. A write-in is a group writing session of sorts. Everyone puts their heads down and writes. No critiquing, no idle chitchat (until afterward). Writing in a group has benefits that can't be found any other way. Writers can challenge each other, answer questions, talk out problems, and reward each other with cookies and stickers.

NaNoWriMo is crazy. Two years later, I have two 50,000-word manuscripts. I get more done in November than I do the entire rest of the year. (That's kind of embarrassing, actually.) I meet all these fun, crazy writers who challenge me to write faster, who dare me to kill a character with a blender, who feed me chocolate cake and pat me on the back at the Thank God It's Over Party. When I finish my novel and I think it's terrible, they read bits of it and assure me that it's not that bad. It's priceless. It beats writing in a vacuum any day.

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Submitted By: Christopher Short

posted on 10/10/2006 @ 4:00:30 PM

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Similar in spirit - inspired, in fact, by NaNoWriMo - is February Album Writing Month (fawm.org). Songsmiths write and record 14 songs in the 28 days of February. I've done it twice now, and count a handful of those songs among my best ever. The "more done in November" bit in your post particularly rings true - I never seem to write more than a half dozen songs the rest of the year.

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