November is almost here and with November comes National Novel Writing Month, aka NaNoWriMo or NaNo for short. In reality, International would better describe the event as participants hailed from forty countries last year.
NaNo started in 1999 kind of as a joke with twenty-one participants. Last year over 200,000 started the project and over thirty thousand finished. Thirty thousand new novels at one time. Yikes!
The goal for NaNo is to start a new novel no earlier than November 1st and to have completed at least 50,000 words by Nov. 30th. Depending on the Genre, most adult novels are between 75-120k words.
The premise is to write without fear. Will good novels come from this venture? A few have gone on to be sold after they have been edited MANY times, but the goal is not to write quality material (that comes from editing) but to go for quantity. Stream of consciousness, baby.
Participants are from all over world. Really! If you are interested, it’s not too late to sign up. This can be done at National Novel Writing Month.
During the course of the month there will be write-ins, challenges between cities and countries, write-a-thons, and more. All kinds of forums will be going 24/7 (around the world, remember?) if you get stuck and need to brainstorm. They’re also great if you just want to procrastinate. For one month every year, anyone can become a novelist.
If you win, you get a print-your-own certificate and a web badge. Also your name will be added to the hallowed Winners page. Ouuuu. Ahhhh.
Guess what. I’m doing it. I’ve intended to start a new project (novel) for some time now, and NaNo is the kick-start it needs. It won’t be a part of the Music City Murder Series, but it’s a story I’m excited to write. The characters have been percolating in my head for a while, and it’s time to let them out.
To make my NaNo adventure even more of a challenge, I’m trying this super-duper writing software developed for MACs called SCRIVENER. It will do cool things like tell you when you’ve used the same word too much on one page—I just have to figure out how to work with it. If I get too frustrated, I can always cut and paste the work-in-progress back into my comfortable Microsoft products.
Obviously, this will take a LOT of time. In addition, my tap troupe is preparing for a December competition, so we’re practicing as a group six to eight hours a week.
For the rest of this month, my posts will probably be little more than an update on my NANO word count. Unless the story stalls and I need a mental break—then you might get a long post. I guess it’ll be a wait and see situation. I’m starting day two a little ahead on word count with 2,396 words, but I have full days today and tomorrow. I’m hoping to stay on track until the weekend when maybe I can get way ahead and have a little breathing room.
I’ll report in Friday. Until then, I’ll be writing. If you join the party at NaNo, friend me. My NaNo name is Iwriteinbna.
~ Kay
