Why am I subjecting myself to this rather unusual form of torture? Because over the weekend I signed up to be a participant in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000-word (approximately 175-page) novel from scratch between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30. Obviously for those thirty days the focus is on quantity, not quality. On creating, not editing, cutting, tweaking and otherwise fretting about what you're writing.
It isn't an easy task. I participated in NaNoWriMo a few years ago and made it maybe a week. You definitely have to be dedicated and make time to write every day. And the no-editing part is really hard for me. Partly because I am an editor and partly because I'm highly self-critical and am likely to think "Oh, that sounds stupid" and quit rather than forcing myself to just keep going. (Or, to quote Dory, "Just keep swimming ...")
But this year I really want to finish. I have no idea what my novel will be about. Maybe my cast of Lego characters (which has been expanded since you were originally introduced to them). Maybe something totally different. The sky's the limit.
Normally I would have kept something like this to myself and just quietly worked on writing my novel ... until I gave up. This time I'm posting my intentions here because of a tip I received in an e-mail from the NaNoWriMo staff:
"Tell everyone you know that you're writing a novel in November. This will pay big dividends in Week Two, when the only thing keeping you from quitting is the fear of looking pathetic in front of all the people who've had to hear about your novel for the past month. Seriously. Email them now about your awesome new book. The looming specter of personal humiliation is a very reliable muse."
So there you have it. If you want to join me in the insanity, head over to the NaNoWriMo Web site and sign up. If not, that's okay; just give me a nudge every once in awhile in November and ask me how many words I've written.
No comments:
Post a Comment