Novel in a month: are you up for challenge?

Come November and something amazing happens — hundreds of thousands of writers and prospective writers from around the world roll up their sleeves and attempt to bash out their novels. This phenomenon is known as the National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo for short. And there’s nothing national about it — it’s a truly global event.

What the heck is a ‘novel writing month’?

NaNoWriMo isn’t a competition or a publishing platform. Think of it as a (humungous) writing group, spread around the world. Like any writers’ group, you get support, advice, information, motivation and conversation. The idea is that, beginning November 1, you pledge to write at least 50,000 words of a novel or a creative project from scratch. While the writing itself is a private and possibly lonely undertaking, the fact that 300,000 to 400,000 other people around the world are doing the same thing can give you a warm fuzzy feeling or a shot of adrenaline, whatever gets you motivated.

NaNoWriMo was the brainchild of freelance writer Chris Baty back in 1999, though it went online only the next year, with 140 participants. Since then, the program has grown — to about 325,000 participants in 2014. NaNo participants are supported by online pep talks and also regional chapters that organise local events around the world (there are events in India too). In addition to the November writing spree, there is also the twice-yearly Camp NaNoWriMo, an online writing ‘camp’ where participants are allowed to choose their own word count goals.

National Novel Writing Month is now a non-profit organisation and runs a number of programmes, including the young writers programme around the world. This encourages creative writing in school students, with support in the form of classroom kits, workbooks and online tools.

But a novel in a month?!

As the NaNoWriMo people say, this is a ‘seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing’. The idea behind the programme is to motivate you to finally get that ‘lengthy work of fiction’ (which is how the NaNoWriMo people define a novel!) out from your head on to your computer screen. It doesn’t have to be a polished manuscript; in fact, it isn’t supposed to be. This one month of breakneck writing is supposed to provide you with a very rough draft, which you can then edit at your leisure.

If you’re still sceptical, it might help to know that bestselling works such as Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus, Rainbow Rowell’s Fangirl, Jason M. Hough’s Darwin Elevator, Hugh Howey’s Wool and Sara Gruen’s Water for Elephants were all NaNoWriMo novels.

What do I get if I write 50k words?

You mean apart from the inner glow of having written 50,000 words by the seat of your pants?! Well, if you’re lucky, you can get a publishing contract — or perhaps make some money by self-publishing. But in the short term, you get bragging rights. Anyone who manages 50,000 words, be it a complete novel or part, is declared a winner and you are welcome to collect an icon or badge to display on your website or a printable certificate. Plus, you are eligible for some delicious discounts from various sponsors, including up to 50 per cent off on novel-writing tools like Scrivener and Storyist, free ebook creation and distribution services from Pronoun, free self-publishing toolkit from Bibliocrunch, three months free access of Evernote Premium and more.

Are you saying I can write a novel?

If that’s what you want to do, then yes, you can write a novel! So, if you’ve been dreaming of penning some fiction, this is the right time to head to NaNoWriMo.org, sign up, create your novel and start planning. Come November, the writing begins. Remember, only 1,667 words a day...

(The author is a personal tech writer)

Source | Financial Chronicle | 13 October 2015