NaNo!

November is National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, as it is (semi) affetionately called. Its a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

So, wait, the what now? To recap:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.

Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: Sign-ups begin October 1, 2007. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

Are you up for the challenge? For the record, at 1:23 on the second day, my word count is zero. but fear not, dearest blog readers, there will be output. Oh yes. There will be output.

And for those who are slightly more faint of heart, there is also NaBloPoMo National Blog Posting Month. Not quite as drastic, but we can't ALL live on the edge, now can we? The challenge of NaBloPoMo is to make a blog post every singe day in the month of November. And so, Mike, Lauren, Lindsay, Elisabeth, Oooooohhh that's right, I'm calling out names. Sign up, and blog. Write!

Watch out, kids, creative juices will be flowing EVERYWHERE!