Got a Month? Write a Novel!

Have you ever thought that one day you would like to write a novel? Well, now’s your chance.

The catch is, you only have one month to do it. That’s the deal if you want to join almost 20,000 would-be novelists from around the world who have signed up to participate in National Novel Writing Month this November.

The organization  (NaNoWriMo) was established 10 years ago by San Francisco Bay area writer Chris Baty, who wanted to look for a fun way to help him and his writing buddies get over their writers block. Since then the phenomenon has mushroomed from 21 people just writing in the Bay Area to 20,000 people internationally.  And that’s only those who’ve signed up so far.

The goal is to write a 50,000 word novel (that’s about 175 pages) in a month. Really, it’s a lot more fun than it sounds. I participated a few years back, and while it was a great writing challenge, I enjoyed the freedom of just writing whatever popped into my head, without that pesky old inner critic stopping my words. After some beginning confusion, I found that I had a story that seemed to take off all by itself. The organization also gave me an opportunity for support with an online writers forum where I could whine to other participants or celebrate my day’s word count. And at the end of November, I had the whole first draft of a novel completed, plus a nifty certificate that said that I was one of NaNoWriMo’s winners. (Of course, all of takes to win is to complete the word count, but still, it was a nice thing to have.)

This year, I’m going to try again. And you guys get to watch. I’m going to dedicate a section of my webpage to each day’s posting, and awful as it might be, you’ll get to see how my novel is progressing. I will also have another section with some tips on how I got through my first November novel.

If you are a novelist, or have one trapped inside you, I would love for you sign up and join me – or, to sponsor me. Just go to the NaNoWriMo website for details on how to sign up and get started. No fair writing down outlines in advance – the contest starts November 1.