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Writers hold a "midnight write"
to kick off NaNoWriMo.
(Photo by Megan Myers) |
Writers, boot up your laptops! November is National Novel Writing Month, or "NaNoWriMo"
to the initiated. The idea is that with the right combination of drive and
discipline, anyone can crank out a 175-page novel over the course of a month.
A group of writers in San
Francisco organized the first NoWriMo in 1999, and since then the event
has snowballed into a national (if niche) phenomenon.
Interestingly, the project isn’t for pen and paper. To be an
official participant, you have to submit your manuscript electronically in order to
have the length verified by word-count
software. It should be noted that people were keeping tabs on words long before
machines made it easy to do so. Ernest Hemingway famously
wrote 500 words a day.
This marathon
of writing events begs the question: Can you really write a good novel in 30 days? Well, it doesn't
have to be Proust; it
just has to be 50,000 words. The event organizers are the first to admit that
writing done in this manner isn't the stuff of masterpieces. They say -- and I quote -- "You will be writing
a lot of crap." To them, it's more about the process. And like the marathon,
not everyone finishes. According to the site, last year 120,000 participants
signed on at the beginning of the month, but only 20,000 people completed their
pieces by midnight on November 30, the official deadline.
Suggested Sites...
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Directory categories:
Literature, Creative Writing, Literature Events, Authors, San Francisco |
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Archived under: Arts, Authors, Books, Events, Fanatics, Literature, San Francisco, Writing |
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