November is National Novel Writing Month!

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is an annual event that challenges participants to write a 175 page (or 50,000 word) novel in one month. NaNoWriMo is more about the fun and the making-it-happen than it is about writing a perfect work of fiction: the only thing that matters is that WriMo writers finish. It's an invitation to take that dream of writing a novel and make it real.

When I heard about it last October I thought the whole thing was crazy--and I wanted to do it. I told some friends, and my then friend and dorm neighbor/now friend and roommate Kayla decided to attempt NaNoWriMo with me.

October 31st rolled around, and we dressed up in our Halloween costumes and signed a contract that entitled us to mock each other if we did not meet the 50,000 word goal.

Me and Kayla all dressed up and NaNo-naive. I'm the cat; she's the iPod ad.

We went about our Halloween festivities all optimistic and giggly. And then November came. I started excitedly writing my novel and promptly ran into a wall. I'd decided to write a story that I'd been outlining and turning over in my mind for about two years--and I liked that story. I did not, however, like any of the words I was pounding out, and I felt like I was letting my story down.

That was a great costume idea. So great I'm posting another picture of it.

And Blogger is doing that thing again where it stops letting me press "enter" and put space between my paragraphs, so the text is about to become very cramped--sorry!)

And then I got slammed with boatloads of homework and gave up trying to write daily. In order to meet the deadline, Wrimo Writers need to type approximately 1,667 words per day. Many days I didn't attempt writing any words because it had become so daunting.

With Thanksgiving Break, however, came freetime, and I decided to give my novel my all. At this point, though, I was so behind that I needed to type almost all day every day of break, and I decided that I could find better ways to spend my precious days off. I gave up at 29,000 words.

Kayla got busy and never started her novel, and since neither of us finished, there was no mocking.

Kayla's friends from a university in another town. They dressed up as Jack and Karen from Will and Grace. They're more fun than my NaNo sob story, so it's okay if you've stopped reading that and are just looking at the pictures.

It's been nearly a year since I signed my first NaNoWriMo contract, and I'm doing it all over again this Halloween--and this time I'm determined to have fun and make those 50,000 words happen.

I may not have finished last year's WriMo challenge, but I learned a lot in the attempt. For one, since NaNoWriMo novels are not meant to be perfect and polished as they are being written, it really doesn't take that long to write 1,667 words per day. Forty-five minutes to an hour tops. Knowing this makes the scheduling factor less intimidating, and I feel more sure of being able to make time for NaNoWriMo.

I am also planning less and writing from new ideas that I brainstormed yesterday--new ideas means less pressure to write something "good", and if I should ever return to my old idea, I discovered many useful things about it.

Aww, look! It's Jack and Karen again.

I'm excited to do NaNoWriMo again, and I see it as win-win whether I finish it or not. I've wanted to write a book--not necessarily as a career--ever since I was five years old and made one with crayons about my cat, and NaNoWriMo is a great opportunity to do that. Without that deadline and all those other crazy WriMo writers it's too easy to say I'm too busy right now; I'll finish a rough draft Someday. (A day which has a habit of never coming around.)

And if I fail again? I'm sure I will have learned many new things in the process.

In celebration of NaNoWriMo and all the possibilities it brings, I interviewed Stephanie Perkins, a successful NaNoWriMo writer whose first novel, Anna and the Boy Masterpiece, will be released by Dutton in Fall 2010. This is Bookduck's--and my--first author interview, and it will be posted tomorrow. Come visit for some NaNo chat and handy NaNo tips!

NaNoWriMo-ly yours,