Midnight tonight marks the two-week countdown to the start of this year’s NaNoWriMo insanity. Thirty days of frantically pulling words out of nowhere and throwing them onto a page whether or not they turn out to be the right ones. The scramble is to create a complete 50,000-word novel in 30 days – an average of 1, 667 words per day.
Nobody expects it to be quality writing… not even moderately good writing. The achievement is in getting story basics out of our heads and onto paper. To do so we need to lock our Internal Critics away for the duration and ignore the temptation to fix or edit anything until after midnight on November 30th or until we rack up the 50,000 words, whichever comes first.
Not everyone sees the point of participating… of deliberately writing something that is bound to be less than our best work. What about you? On November 1st are you going to join in the craziness of NaNoWriMo 2009?
MUSINGS 
I’m in! For a lot of years I disagreed with the standard theory that most of serious writing is re-writing. But it’s really true. If you want something quality, you have to rewrite it till it makes you sick. But you can’t re-write, till you write. NaNo is great because it MAKES you get that first draft down on the page so you can really go to work to make something worthy of publishing. Because as talented as we all think we are (me too!) none of us are so good that our first draft is gonna be a bestseller. Really.
Best wishes for your writing!
babs
Me!
This year I’m taking it seriously, and I hope to get a good first draft out of it.
Nah…. Too much goin’ on for me these days.
Hi Dave,
It’s a lot harder for someone who has to fit writing time around a work schedule, so I’m fortunate that way. I still really debated about it. I’m going to be away at least one week in November but in the end I decided I could take my laptop with me. I expect I’m going to be dragging my feet as I head into NaNo but I think I need the boost the adrenalin rush will give me. I’ll let you know afterwards if I made the right decision.
Babs and Andrew,
I have two writing buddies joining me but it’s always encouraging to know others are venturing into NaNo’s coffee-crazed wilderness, too. With any luck, at the end we’ll all have a first draft to show for our thirty day dash.
Setting up IV tubing now so I’m ready to mainline caffeine when NaNo starts….
You have an advantage, Shari… a nurse can do that. I’ll be stuck pouring it from the pot and warming it frequently in the microwave. Of course there’s also Diet Coke! 🙂
Working full time just wouldn’t allow me to but even if I wasn’t I don’t see it as something I would do…But you know what they say…never say never…Who knows?
It’s not something that interests every writer, for sure. The idea of flailing away at writing with the main goal of accumulating words can seem pointless. For me, however, the rapid pace invigorates my brain cells and that has a spin-off effect on my other writing. I’ve been revising for so long that I’m plodding now, so I’m looking to kick-start my enthusiasm again.
Not a chance!!! I think I’ll be marking twice that many words during November, so I’ll pass on trying to write them. You guys are insane. Hope it doesn’t run in the family. Wait. What am I saying? I KNOW it runs in the family, but let’s hope it’s missed this particular descendant!
I’ll be cheering my mother and sister on though….you crazy people!
I guess someone in the family has to stay sane. Then again… why? 😉
I’ve never participated. Every year I say “Next year.” But next year comes and something always comes up. This year it’s the same thing: something’s come up.
Have fun.
Sometimes you just have to prioritize. I’d say what came up this year is pretty special, Joylene! And there’s always next year.