The biggest piece of advice a writer receives is to make time to write every day. But what about when a word of wisdom becomes a month-long goal toward a bigger project?
November is National Novel Writing Month, and Nov. 1 marks the start of NaNoWriMo, the program in which people from all over the world try to complete a 50,000-word (175 pages) novel by midnight Nov. 30. NaNoWriMo.org was set up to help those thousands of people keep track of their progress and activities in their area as everyone sat down to work for the next 30 days.
The first NaNoWriMo started in 1999 with a group of friends in San Francisco, including founder Chris Baty. The next year, the Web site was online. From there, it was just a matter of getting attention.
“Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved,” the Web site explains. “Because of the limited writing window, the only thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks and write on the fly.”
Many NaNoWriMo pieces went on to become real novels, such as Sarah Gruen’s “Flying Changes” and “Breakup Babe” by Rebecca Agiewich. Last year, 59,000 people took part, and 9,769 reached their goal.
In 2004, Baty published his book on the experience, titled, “No Plot? No Problem!: A Low-Stress, High-Velocity Guide to Writing a Novel in 30 Days.” In it, Baty wrote at length about his experiences writing and his main encouragement: a deadline.
“Deadlines are the dynamo of the modern age,” he describes. “They’ve built every city, won every contest and helped all of us pay our taxes reasonably close to on time for years and years. Deadlines bring focus, focusing us to make time for the achievements we would otherwise postpone, encouraging us to reach beyond our conservative estimates of what we think possible, helping us to wrench victory from the jaws of sleep.”
Now, with Halloween over and the countdown beginning, many are taking their places in front of their computers with caffeinated drinks in hand and plot on their minds. Who will make it? Who will fail? Only a month will tell.