Post by Santa Melty on Nov 11, 2006 1:55:58 GMT -5
For those who do not know what this is, permit me to enlighten.
The National Novel Writing Month is an annual event that takes place throughout November. It is run on non-profit terms, and there is no prize or loss to be had from wining or losing or ignoring it entirely.
During the event, hordes of talent-deprived sods rally, each attempting to compose a 50,000-word novel within one month’s time. People have breakdowns, rip large amounts of hair from their scalps and cry like preschoolers. To my understanding, it is quite fun.
I myself am trying my hand at it this year; I thought it would be nice practice. And I figure it can’t hurt to ask if anyone here planned on partaking. Now, 50,000 words can be a bit much, so the idea is not to write great literature, but to write. Anything. Quantity over quality. The thinking behind this being that people may want to write some sort of story, but never in their lifetime actually get to doing it. So, by compressing the deadline to a single month, people who wish to meet the required word count must abandon the egotistical and time-consuming desire to write anything actually worth reading, and simply write what comes to mind. Many people start with absolutely no idea of what they wish to write about, and must develop plots as they go. This has an interesting effect at times, often giving you plot twists and story development that you would never have thought of in a right state of mind.
As for what constitutes a “Novel”, they leave that largely up to the writer. Fan fiction or a collection of short stories could quality as a novel, if you so proclaim it as such. I’m not very big on rules, but they seem to be pretty lenient with it. In any case, it is all in good fun.
And if you make the word count in time, people will either pat you on the back or yell rude things at you, contingent on whether or not they’ve met the word count themselves. You can also sit around for hours giggling at whatever horrendous writing you produce.
On the other end of the scale, I believe people have had their stories from the NaNoWriMo published commercially in the past, so if you are some sort of genius, I suppose you can feel free to exploit the competition and try to get in good with some publishers.
Anyway, if you are participating, I’d be happy to hear about it. If you are not, then you’re a bit late, but feel free to jump in anyway. I’d post my account name on their site, but there is really nothing there to look at; my word count is abysmal, and I have no photo.
The official site is as listed, so anyone interested can peruse for a more proper introduction and some rules to the event.
www.nanowrimo.org/
The National Novel Writing Month is an annual event that takes place throughout November. It is run on non-profit terms, and there is no prize or loss to be had from wining or losing or ignoring it entirely.
During the event, hordes of talent-deprived sods rally, each attempting to compose a 50,000-word novel within one month’s time. People have breakdowns, rip large amounts of hair from their scalps and cry like preschoolers. To my understanding, it is quite fun.
I myself am trying my hand at it this year; I thought it would be nice practice. And I figure it can’t hurt to ask if anyone here planned on partaking. Now, 50,000 words can be a bit much, so the idea is not to write great literature, but to write. Anything. Quantity over quality. The thinking behind this being that people may want to write some sort of story, but never in their lifetime actually get to doing it. So, by compressing the deadline to a single month, people who wish to meet the required word count must abandon the egotistical and time-consuming desire to write anything actually worth reading, and simply write what comes to mind. Many people start with absolutely no idea of what they wish to write about, and must develop plots as they go. This has an interesting effect at times, often giving you plot twists and story development that you would never have thought of in a right state of mind.
As for what constitutes a “Novel”, they leave that largely up to the writer. Fan fiction or a collection of short stories could quality as a novel, if you so proclaim it as such. I’m not very big on rules, but they seem to be pretty lenient with it. In any case, it is all in good fun.
And if you make the word count in time, people will either pat you on the back or yell rude things at you, contingent on whether or not they’ve met the word count themselves. You can also sit around for hours giggling at whatever horrendous writing you produce.
On the other end of the scale, I believe people have had their stories from the NaNoWriMo published commercially in the past, so if you are some sort of genius, I suppose you can feel free to exploit the competition and try to get in good with some publishers.
Anyway, if you are participating, I’d be happy to hear about it. If you are not, then you’re a bit late, but feel free to jump in anyway. I’d post my account name on their site, but there is really nothing there to look at; my word count is abysmal, and I have no photo.
The official site is as listed, so anyone interested can peruse for a more proper introduction and some rules to the event.
www.nanowrimo.org/
