It is a time of fear in the face of freedom, a time for the widening of previous roads and the opening of new paths, a time of an emptying country and swelling cities, yet a time when these paths are mined by knowing algorithms of the all-seeing eye. It is the time of the warrior's peace and the miser's charity, when the planting of a seed is an act of conscientious objection.
 | National Novel Writing Month Is Near |
A thought for those people who get itchy at the idea of writing. National Novel Writing Month is coming soon.
Every November, for several years running now, large numbers of people have registered online to participate in the project. There’s no cost, unless you want to make a donation to the organization to facilitate the event.
At midnight, on the turn from Halloween to November 1, participants from around the world sit down at their computers and begin writing, with the goal of having 50,000 words written by the end of the month. They send their documents in to the NaNoWriMo web site every now and then, and the documents are checked for the number of words written, but not read. People can, in this way, show their quantitative progress on the site.
Everybody who reaches the goal wins. Everyone who tries is congratulated. There is no promise that any of the works written in the month will be published, or any guarantee that any of the results will be much good. The benefit seems to be in the experience, a kind of endurance run for people who want to prove that they can get words down on a page.
At a time when being entertained is increasingly the dominant American past time, I think that it’s worthwhile to spend one month each year trying to create something for oneself, by oneself.
If the idea of trying to write a short novel in one month awakens something perky inside you, give it a shot. You’ve got nothing to lose but sleep.
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I took a look at my NaNoWriMo file for last year and it contains 1600 words, mostly written on the bus in two chapters, which is as far as I got before I realized I didn’t have a plot. Or for that matter, a genre. It made me depressed. Maybe I just don’t have the right creativity. Maybe I’m doing something wrong.
Comment by Iroquois — 10/19/2007 @ 4:50 pm
I think I’m going to try it this year. I’ve never even written a short story, so who knows how it will turn out? Even if I don’t succeed I’ll have probably pushed open the boundaries of my abilities a little bit.
Comment by Jim — 10/22/2007 @ 7:47 am
I signed up last year, but I wasn’t able to fit any of the local events into my schedule.
http://camelsnose.wordpress.com/2006/11/01/6/
Comment by Nijma — 10/27/2007 @ 5:32 pm
This morning going out to the garden for a bit of mint for my morning tea the air was rather biting and there was frost on a small part of the lawn. First frost? November already.
Also the first day of NaNoWriMo. Time to find an opening sentence.
How about a story, purely fictional of course, about a bunch of lobbyists and venture capitalists who get together and decide to start a third party made up of both republicans and democrats?
Comment by Iroquois — 11/1/2007 @ 9:27 am