Monday, December 1, 2008

I wrote a novel in under 30 days

What is NaNoWriMo?

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

In 2007, we had over 100,000 participants. More than 15,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.


I wrote 50,497 words from November 4-30!  

I did it! Yeah! I did it!  

It was  fun and hard and exasperating but I buckled down and wrote a novel! :)


2 comments:

Suzanne Reese said...

Woo Hoo! Congrats! That's a great feeling isn't it! Way to go!

Peggy said...

Taffy- I didn't know you are a writer! I love to write, too. I just found your blog through Shauna's. I'm going to have to come back soon and read more.

That's so cool you did NaNoWriMo. I had too much homework last November, but I'm planning to do it this year. It's exciting to read that you did it! Congrats.

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