November is here, which means that it’s time for NaNoWriMo! That stands for National Novel Writing Month, and the participants aim to write 50,000 words of a novel in 30 days.
National Novel Writing Month is meant to encourage people to focus on writing lots of words in a relatively short span of time. Because it is all about quantity over quality, I’ve never been interested in participating before. But looking at how long it took me to write the 2 novels and the 2 novellas I’ve finished so far, I thought it might be interesting for me to join in this year. I figure I could gain a number of things through this exercise, such as:
- Explore my writing voice. Even though I have a few finished works behind me and lots of blog posts, I still feel as though I am still only in the beginning stages of discovering my voice. It’s easy to choke the natural storyteller in you with the (sometimes conflicting) information from writing workshops, author and editor tips, style guides and expert advice. A full month of writing fiction fast without agonizing over every single word I put down on the page for a change may be just the thing I need to reveal my true, unadulterated natural writing voice.
- Establish a new writing routine. Considering how I’ve been falling behind in my personal writing goals past few weeks, I could certainly use a new schedule. This will force me to get even more serious about my writing regime. Breaking down the numbers, 50,000 words in 30 days = 1,667 words a day (if writing 7 days a week). That’s about 6 pages a day. It’ll take some discipline, some creative time-management and changing my wake/sleep times and my chatting /reading / tv-watching / video-game playing habits.
- Get a productivity boost. Having 50,000 words written by the end of this month will definitely help me make up for some of my slack! Getting a story down on paper is always a good thing in my book – even if it is only in a SUPER-rough rough draft.
- Have fun. I love writing. It is a release, a hobby as well as dream profession for me. And allowing myself to FREELY write fiction without all of the professional voices in my head saying things like “What those adverbs!”, “Oh no, you wrote that sentence in passive voice instead of active!” and “Are you head-hopping again?” will only up the fun factor.
- Inspire others to write their story. Just casually mentioning my intention to participant in this to a friend made them want to get in on it, too. Who knows – maybe others will want to join us. Some things are even more enjoyable with company.
Every day this month I plan to post my daily progress. If you’re playing too, please stop by and let me know how you’re doing!
{ 95 comments }
