I’m not entirely sure yet, but I’ve just run across something that I’m really tempted to make a shot at — National Novel Writing Month, in which all participants have one month, from Nov. 1st to Nov. 30th, to write a 50,000 word novel (approximately 175 pages). Quality isn’t a concern, nor is style, form, or anything of the sort — merely doing it, or attempting to do it, is the point.
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.
Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over talent and craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.
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.
I haven’t got the faintest clue what I’d write about. I don’t even know if it’s a real possibility, when I work a full 40-hour week, plus some on the weekends. But I’ve got the next month to think about it, to see if I can come up with something worth writing about (or even something not worth writing about, just to see how it ends up), and to see if I really want to give this a shot. I think I do…