NaNoWriMo 2005
After briefly mulling over the idea to participate in NaNoWriMo the past two years, I've finally decided to take on the challenge and participate this year. I'm not entirely confident of my ability to finish, but I'll give it a shot. Basically, the deciding factor for me this time was the fact that, unlike the last two years, I actually have a solid idea for a novel.
For the uninitiated, let me explain exactly what NaNoWriMo is. It stands for National Novel Writing Month and takes place every November. The goal is to write a 50,000 word manuscript in the space of thirty days. Last year, if I remember correctly, there were 42,000 participants with around 6000 of them managing to finish. The theory is that encouragement from a pretty tightly-knit NaNoWriMo community along with an actual deadline helps to spur people on.
It'll be a mammoth undertaking for me, as I'm a very slow writer - somewhere in the neighbourhood of two or three hundred words an hour. At that rate, I'd have to write for at least five and a half hours a day to reach the 50,000 word target. Obviously that's not going to happen, so I'll have to make a concerted effort to spend less time editing as I write.
So, who's with me? I know Yzabel over at the Y Logs is up for it and she's posted a list of her resolutions for this year's event.
For the uninitiated, let me explain exactly what NaNoWriMo is. It stands for National Novel Writing Month and takes place every November. The goal is to write a 50,000 word manuscript in the space of thirty days. Last year, if I remember correctly, there were 42,000 participants with around 6000 of them managing to finish. The theory is that encouragement from a pretty tightly-knit NaNoWriMo community along with an actual deadline helps to spur people on.
It'll be a mammoth undertaking for me, as I'm a very slow writer - somewhere in the neighbourhood of two or three hundred words an hour. At that rate, I'd have to write for at least five and a half hours a day to reach the 50,000 word target. Obviously that's not going to happen, so I'll have to make a concerted effort to spend less time editing as I write.
So, who's with me? I know Yzabel over at the Y Logs is up for it and she's posted a list of her resolutions for this year's event.
11 Comments:
Wow, 50,000 words in 30 days. That seems like a lot. I mean, I could write that many words, but would they be good...now there's the dilemma.
Ah, but all the fun comes from the fact that we're not supposed to care whether the words are good or not :) The editing part comes later (I think they even have NaNoEdMo for this, in March?), once we've been able to sleep on the novel for a bit. Sure, the first draft may be just crap, but at least the novel will be finished!
I'm going to participate in this years contests, I was going to last year but I forgot which month it was and only remembered halfway through November.
I have a problem with motivation, I'm a lazy writer, if Novels only consited of the first four chapters I'd be a celebrated author.
Hopefully the NaNoWriMo will give me the push I need.
Good luck!
I'm doing it for the first time this year. I always wanted to in the past but too many things were happening in years past. I'm very motivated to do it this year. The trick is to just write and not edit. I average about 1,500 a night on my current WIP if I don't care about editing.
I can write only 10 pages of serious literature a day. That would only be possible after my research.
I love such challenges.
Great books would be discovered in the competition.
I think I may try to do this this year. I have been mulling over my first novel (and have actually written about 35 pages of it) this might be just what I need to get me off my ass and do it.
I'm seriously thinking about doing it this year as well. Need to think more about it as I will be away for part of November.
Decisions decisions.
Nice reminder that this is the month.
Good luck with that!
Just surfing through from Blog Explosion and wanted to say hi!
I would love to try that. But my fiction writing capabilities are more or less nonexistent. Which is perhaps why I should try it.... Good luck!
Glad to see so many people out there who want to try it out. I think it'd be nice to have a bit of a "community outside the community" during November to spur each other on.
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