National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

Well, I've gone and done it. I've signed up for National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo as it's affectionately known). I'm going to spend the month of November immersed in words. The object is to write over 1600 words a day in order to amass a thirty-day total of 50,000 words, the equivalent of a short novel.

I did something like this three years ago, when I purchased a book entitled No Plot? No Problem!, written by Chris Baty, the originator of NaNoWriMo. The book goes into great detail about how the thirty-day novel works and gives some excellent advice and suggestions. So, although I haven't "officially" done NaNoWriMo before now, I did write an "unofficial" thirty-day novel in the middle of the summer.

The damn thing still isn't finished, though. I wrote the requisite number of words, but I didn't finish the story. And there it sits. I've read through it a number of times in the past three years, and I really like most of it, but I haven't added anything new to it. I know where it's going, and I know some of the scenes I want to write, but I haven't written them yet.

This is typical of  me. I write a bunch of stuff, and then I let it sit unfinished for eons.

I don't know why I think this time is going to be any different, but I'm going to do it anyway. Because I need to write, and because it's a challenge, and because of lot of people I know are doing it.

Have I mentioned Protagonize? Yes, I believe I have. Many times, in fact. Well, a lot of the people I know on Protagonize are doing NaNoWriMo this year. I'd been waffling about it, because there are so many other things going on in my life right now, but let's face it, how many people do you know who don't have a million things going on in their lives right now? So, that was really no excuse. And although Protagonize is not about peer pressure, there is a certain community feeling to the place (I mean website), so this put the kibosh on my waffling and shoved it in the direction of signing up.

So, I'm all signed up. I've added a bunch of Protagonize folks to my NaNoWriMo buddy list, and now it's just a matter of watching the days count down to November 1st.

I'm getting a little concerned, though. You see, a lot of the folks I know who have signed up are setting about researching, outlining, note-taking, and otherwise preparing for this thirty-day write-fest. I've done nothing of the sort. I know my premise, I know my main character, and I know my setting, but beyond that I was planning on just sort of winging it. That's what I did with the "unofficial" thirty day novel of three years ago, and I don't see any reason why the same strategy shouldn't work for me now.

I've even decided that this thirty-day novel is going to be a "prequel" to the other one. Same main character, different (though related) situation. And I'm going to inject more of my real life into it. Not a lot, but some. I don't know how it's going to turn out, but with the help of Dr. Wicked's Write or Die website (into which I am typing these very words you are now reading), I think I will be able to commit the required wordage to the screen.

I just better make damn sure that I copy and paste on a regular basis, as there is no way to save the text in Write or Die's text field to a file on your computer. Dr. Wicked does have a desktop version of Write or Die, however, which goes for the measly sum of $10.00. It runs on your computer without the need to connect to his site, and it will save your text. That will be a cool toy to try out when I finally get around to purchasing it. In the meantime, the website is free.

So, there you have it. I'm a writer, therefore it goes without saying that I am somewhat crazy. So my signing on for this thirty-day, 1600-words-a-day thing should come as no surprise. It's planned craziness, and I'm going to set out to have a helluva lot of fun with it. After all, writing should not be torture. It should the blissful venting of ideas from the back of the brain to the tips of the fingers.

Or something like that.

And I've just managed to write seven-hundred words in under fifteen minutes.

This NaNoWriMo thing should be a piece of cake.

Yeah. Right. Well, I'm thinking positively anyway.

Mind the gap.

(Yes, there are videos on YouTube about NaNoWriMo, but they're all utter crap. Every last one of them. I couldn't find anything official. Just a bunch of people with webcams in dimly lit rooms going on and on and on about not much of anything. I was sorely disappointed. So instead, here's a Monty Python skit about novel writing. It's audio only, unfortunately, but there's a lovely picture of the Matching Tie and Handkerchief album, on which the sketch appears, for you to look at while you're listening and thanking your lucky stars that I didn't embed a NaNoWriMo video here.)