NaNoWriMo, November 2014

I LOVE, LOVE, LOVE NaNoWriMo!!!!

What is that, you ask?

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and November is that month!!! The Office of Letters and Light is all about helping people unlock their creativity and get some writing done! NaNoWriMo is based on a simple premise: during the month of November, you write a 50,000 word novel. 

Sounds crazy, right? Sounds hard, right?

So why love it, you ask? 

BECAUSE IT IS AWESOME!!!

Novel writing is hard, no two shakes about it. There's no way to make it easy. Writing 50,000 words that string together into some semblance of a story that a reader can follow is tough. But it is so worth it. And that's what the Office of Letters and Light is getting at: it's tough, but it's worth it, and so let's get it done! 

In order to get 50,000 words written between November 1st and November 30th, you have to do some serious WRITING. The average to get done on time is almost 2000 words a day. And in order to write 2000 words a day, you have just put your head down and WRITE. You have to just get your stuff out on the page and not spend too much time fiddling with it. 

What a great project! I love that NaNoWriMo forces you to let go of all your neurosis and habits and weird things about writing and just write. 

I love people that say writing is 10% talent and 90% just putting your butt in the chair. I think that's totally true, but there's something to be said for having writing talent. Likewise, I love people who say "the only rule is that there are no rules." True, but not true. There are rules, but they are often meant to be broken, and those who break them well (E.E. Cummings, anyone?) often meet with success. 

The bottom line: writing is HARD. It just is. Period. End of story. But I think we tend to make it harder through overthinking it. 

NaNoWriMo tries to yank you away from that place where you overthink and allow writing to be really hard. It forces you to just get it all out, even if that means that you skip a scene or let your characters yell, "You suck" in the middle of a courtroom drama scene. The beauty of writing is that you can go back and EDIT. 

So, NaNoWriMo is here, and I am trying to get after it! 

If this sounds fun or interesting to you, check out the NaNoWriMo website and join the fun!!

PS--I will freely admit that in the four years I have done NaNoWriMo, I have never "won" by making it to the 50,000 word mark. My job and Thanksgiving always manage to really throw my schedule off. But despite never making 50,000 words, I have made other significant word counts that have gotten me on a roll, and subsequently gone on to be novels that I have finished later.