It's Almost NaNo Time!

It's almost time for NaNoWriMo! If you aren't familiar with it, November is National Novel Writing Month. It's "thirty days and nights of literary abandon!" NaNoWriMo is a ridiculous name, but a fun thing to try, and the whole family can get involved. Someone, somewhere had the grand idea to challenge aspiring writers around the world to attempt writing a 50,000 word novel in one month. Now it's a big annual to do, and every year, tons of people participate. Obviously, 30 days is not a lot of time to write a book, so you're going for quantity over quality in this case. There's no time to edit, revise, and perfect. It's a mad rush to get out all your crazy ideas as fast as you can. Some people may wonder what's the point? It's not like they have some awesome grand prize, like an all expense paid tropical vacation or anything. I guess the point is just to see if you can do it. There's not a lot of glory, but it's an experience. Maybe, somewhere among the piles of drivel you churn out, you might find a gem that you can use. Chances are, it'll get your creative juices flowing, and I think it will be entertaining.


At first, I considered trying to combine Nano writing somehow into my blog, imagining myself diligently writing and publishing daily. Then, I considered the fact that most of what I write at that speed will probably be complete nonsense, and it probably isn't that great of an idea to publish large quantities of nonsensical writings on the internet under your own name if you plan to continue doing any writing for a living. Hopefully, I'll be able to come up with enough to write about in both places, and blog readers will at least get a semi edited version of my ramblings. I'm not making any promises though.

There's a kids, or "young writers" challenge, too. They can choose their own word count- my daughter and a couple of her friends are aiming for 10,000 words each. There are writing exercises, forums to toss out questions, and kids can connect with other writing buddies for advice and support. It seems like a great way to encourage some creative writing, and I can't wait to see what my daughter comes up with this year. Last year, we all did our own independent versions, and it was amazing to see how motivated they were, and much writing they churned out.
I'm curious, is anyone else up for the challenge this year? Check it out here, and if you try it, let me know how it goes.