During the month of November, the Office of Letters and Light. a group based out of San Francisco, organizes an event via the Web called National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short. The goal of the project is to write a 50,000 word novel, or at least something that resembles a novel in thirty days. Broken down that is approximately 1667 words per day. I took up this endeavor at the end of October as I saw it the perfect opportunity to get some practice writing novels.
I have written many different genres but never a novel. The scope of such a project overwhelmed me, but for some reason this promise I made on the Internet meant something to me. To me it meant I was going to stop making excuses. I saw each writing session as less a novel from front to end and more as a daily brain storming session. Pieces of a puzzle that fit together in a tangled fashion.
My first unfinished attempt at a novel, The Assassin is sitting at seven chapters and a little over 8000 words. I worked on those 8000 words for months.
My NaNoWriMo novel, also unfinished (still without an ending), is eleven chapters and a little over 50000 words. It's called Lost and Found by Twos, but that is a tentative title. It's about two twins, born in an asylum under the experimental hands of a mad scientist, Doctor Maladay. The twins are part human, part alien, considered a new species called Homo Deus. Doctor Maladay's goal was to create a superior human race from the most worthy human and alien genes.
The twins have had a hard life growing up in the asylum until they get caught trying to go through their medical records. At the same time, Doctor Maladay decides the children would be better suited in a home setting. Their minds are stimulated through academics. They learn they can use parts of their brains other humans could not. They turn eighteen and are dying to know what their records can tell them about their past. They learn from Doctor Maladay why they were kept at the asylum all those years and just who their human parents really are.
I loved the experience because I had a tangible goal. I also had a handful of people around me endeavoring to compete for the prize as well. I was able to spend quality time with Ryan and some new friends as we struggled to maintain the daily word count goal. Gabriel spent two nights in a row with his Grandmother, something he has never done before. This partially came about because I was spending time writing, mostly so I could stay up late at night without feeling too guilty about wanting to sleep in (more than normal).
I've been asked and tried to answer some of the common questions associated with this experience. Most easily, why? Why would someone write for this particular event? What is the purpose? How do you win and what do you win? Are you going to publish?
I did NaNoWriMo because I love writing and I am always looking for a good excuse. I loved the format and setup, something that would be private, but open to my own writing buddies if I wanted it that way. I had never wrote that much before and now that I am a stay at home mother, NaNoWriMo allowed me to have something I could work on and be proud of besides my parenting skills. The purpose from the NaNoWriMo perspective is to stop the excuses and just write. 50,000 words, even if they are not at all times coherent. They see it as more important to have a rough draft than to endlessly perfect every word, never really hitting the status of novel. Anyone can participate (they have a specific program for young children) and upload their words/novel to the site. Winning is only a term for completing 50,000 words in thirty days or less. In return, you get free banners to put on your website, twitter, facebook, whereever. As for publishing, it was something I thought of but not something I would ever aspire for Lost and Found. While it would no doubt be flattering, for me, this was more of a practice run, a trial and error, brainstorming experience.
I learned a lot from NaNoWriMo. I learned how to stop analyzing every word. I learned how to move on when I get stuck in a rut. I learned that not everything has to make sense, at least during the rough draft phase. I learned it's more important to fill the page than to critize each thought I have. So many ideas and features of my story flowed from my fingers organically because I was able to turn off the critic giving my characters free reign to take control. After all, it was their story I was telling.
I'll be back for 2011!
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