In approximately 1 hour and 40 minutes, it will be the official start of National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. (Yes Erik, you were right ;)).
NaNoWriMo is a crazy, crazy project. Participants sign up to write an entire novel--yes, an entire novel--in one month. That's 50,000 words in 30 days. The point of NaNo is not to write a good novel. It's actually to turn off your internal editor and nay-sayer and just put 50k words on paper (er, screen) without worrying about whether or not it's...you know...good. It's all about quantity, quantity, quantity.
NaNo was started in 1999 and has happened every November since then. In 2006, there were over 79,000 participants, and over 13,000 of them "won" (which is to say--finished their novels). There's a huge online community surrounding it as well as local communities. Everyone supports each other and cheers each other on. I've already met with 4 other North Orange County NaNoers and tomorrow will be meeting up with a handful of others for my first official "write-in," which is where you sit in Starbucks as a group and write.
This is my first NaNo and I'm very excited about it! The title of my novel is, "I Won't Be Home For Christmas."
Follow my NaNo progress HERE! And be sure to take me to task if I'm not making any said progress :).
Although don't take me to task if you read this on November 1st and I haven't updated anything yet. I start work at 6am and get off at 2:30 pm and will be taking a nap. Rest assured that I will be writing though!
Posted by Shelby at October 31, 2007 10:17 PMI am so excited for you! You're such a talented writer. It was fun to read your excerpt. Go Shelby go!!!
Posted by: Anita at November 13, 2007 09:19 PM