NaNoWriMo
Check "writing a book" off your bucket list during National Novel Writing Month
Will you pen your pièce de résistance this November during National NovelWriting Month (NaNoWriMo)?
If it's got a coat of arms, you know NaNoWriMo is serious business.
Even if you don't want to level with us here, we've caught you red-handed. We've read your bucket list. We know you want to write a novel before you kick the, um, bucket.
So how is this November lookin' to you?
Not for dying. For writing.
Yes, we mean this coming Monday, the first day of a new month. It's as good a day as any to start composing (and completing) your masterpiece.
Actually, the first of November is especially befitting, since that's when National Novel Writing Month kicks off its 11th year.
Oh, you didn't know about National Novel Writing Month?
The Office of Letters and Light's NaNoWriMo (as veterans such as yours truly dub the event) is a creative, community push that aims for each author to get a full novel written within the thirty days of November.
It describes itself as "thirty days and thirty nights of literary abandon," and as a participant that did not quite consummate her opus in 2005, I agree.
Indeed, if you're going to write 50,000 words by the end of the month — the minimum to be considered "a novel" by NaNoWriMo's standards — then madness must be infused into those 1,667 words you'll need to plonk out daily to keep pace.
Started in 1999 with a laughable 21 participants, the blogging revolution of the mid-2000s helped propel NaNoWriMo to notoriety. And last year's pinnacle of participation topped out at just under 170,000 wannabe scribes.
Will you be furiously click-clacking away this November? With colder days (fingers crossed, anyway) and longer nights ahead, a little laptop love never looked so enticing.
Besides, your bucket list will thank you, come Nov. 30. Betcha hear the sweet sound of a check mark filling that box right now.
