NaNoWriMo: Are You Up For It?
Image by carolinearmijo of Flickr
If someone you knew were to tell you they were participating in NaNoWriMo you'd probably wonder when, exactly, they had gone crazy. At least, that's what I thought the first time I ever heard of it. Surprisingly, NaNoWriMo is an actual event that takes place in November, one that is ten years in the running.
NaNoWriMo is the pet name given to the National Novel Writing Month, a creative writing project, that its participants have lovingly bestowed upon it. NaNoWriMo was began by Chris Baty in July 1999 in San Francisco, CA with only 21 participants, a number that has grown by leaps and bounds every year. In 2000 the month was changed to November to "to more fully take advantage of the miserable weather" and it has stayed a November event since. 2000 was also the year that NaNoWriMo first went online, then only using a Yahoo! group that had to be joined before the start of the contest. The rules for NaNoWriMo were also set that year.
By 2002 Baty had established an official NaNoWriMo website and by 2003 Baty had begun to write "No Plot, No Problem!" the NaNoWriMo guide. 2007 marked the first fundraising event, "A Night of Writing Dangerously", which allowed all participants who donated $200 or more to attend a 6 hour event in San Francisco. However, NaNoWriMo is a non-profit organization and participation is free. Donations are just that, donations.
The rules of NaNoWriMo are simple. A novel of at least 50,000 words must be written by 11:59:59 PM, California time, on November 30, and you are automatically a winner. The novel does not have to be complete, it just has to be 50,000 words. While you can pre-plan and write notes about your novel before the competition starts, no part of the novel can be actually written before November 1.
Novels can be of any theme or any genre, from fanfiction to metafiction. As long as it's fiction. The site's FAQ proclaims "If you believe you're writing a novel, we believe you're writing a novel too." Although it is said to be national, NaNoWriMo is truly an international organization, and people may participate from any country and novels can be written in any language. The novel doesn't have to make logical sense, nor does it have to have a plot. All that is required is that you find a way to crank out 50,000 words by the deadline. Also, for anyone fearing their work being stolen, the site's FAQ teaches how to easily scramble your novel without effecting the word count.
NaNoWriMo is not a competition, though there are people who are declared winners. There are no prizes for length, quality, or speed. Anyone who passes the 50,000 word mark is declared a winner. The only true prize is the satisfaction of having completed you manuscript. For this reason, although the rules are in place there are no precautions against cheating. In the end, the only one you cheat, if you break the rules, is yourself.
National Novel Writing Month begins again this year at 12:01 AM on November 1. Anyone willing to participate is welcomed and there is no penalty for joining and not finishing. This year will be my first NaNoWriMo. I hope you join me.
Sources:
