November is quickly approaching and that means raking leaves, cooking turkeys, and welcoming (or avoiding) relatives. November is also National Novel Writing Month and that means that thousands of writers around the world will be sitting in a dazed frenzy at their keyboards, writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days as part of the NaNoWriMo challenge.

This will be my 4th year to participate. The first two years I reached the goal of 50,000 words in 30 days (Yeah!!!). Last year my brain melted and I only made it to 20,000 words (Alas!). All three years were fun though, because the challenge is  more akin to an online social gathering than to a do-or-die mountain climbing expedition. Each participant has their own page where they can keep track of the number of words they’ve written, post excerpts of their novel and network with their writing buddies. The site also hosts forums, encouragement and souvenir T-shirts.  Living as I do in a small town, I look forward to the opportunity to ‘get together’ with other writers once a year, if only via the forums.

There are precious few rules for NaNoWriMo, but one of them is to gag your internal editor and shove him/her in the closet before you begin. That’s the whole point of the challenge, really, to put writers in an intense situation where they’re too busy tapping on the keyboard to listen to that inner voice that whines that your idea is no good, won’t sell or is beyond your abilities. For thirty days, writers can just concentrate on creating and leave the editing for another day. It’s a gloriously freeing concept!

So if you’re looking for a challenge this year, NaNoWriMo may be for you. If you’re interested, go to www.NaNoWriMo.org to register. Then gather up your favorite songs, comfort food and writing clothes and start plotting!

Posted on October 10th, 2007 by EJ McFall
Filed under: General