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.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking 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.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.

In 2006, we had over 79,000 participants. Nearly 13,000 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.

So, to recap:

What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month’s time.

Who: You! We can’t do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let’s write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.

Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era’s most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

When: Sign-ups begin October 1, 2007. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

Still confused? Just visit the How NaNoWriMo Works page!

Those who know me and love me know that I have always wanted to be a writer since I was a little girl, but have always kept it inside of me, never thinking that I was any good, never trying so that I could never fail. I keep on visiting this page, wanting to sign up, but so afraid of failing, so afraid that if I put myself out there that I will find out that I am not very good at all. The concept of that it is better to have a hidden dream than to put it out in the world and find out you are a failure.

My whole life I have just been good at things and then everything else seems to fall into place. My job was one of those things that just happened and my success isn’t about trying or doing it is just because. But, writing… Writing is something that you have to put your soul into, you have to listen to the voices inside of your head, you have to TRY and then you have to learn to let it all go and just BE, a very scary thing for a perfectionist.

Over the last several months I have been reading Neil Gaiman’s Journal ( http://www.neilgaiman.com/journal ) and his journal has encouraged my writing a lot. He talks about how he doesn’t know the whole story, how it twists and turns and sometimes surprises him and he is excited to read the next part of the story himself because he wonders how it will turn out. Neil is amazing, because he is a real person, who happens to write stories that are popular. He loves what he does. It isn’t about being great or bad, it is just what comes out of his head. I think that is how I want to be able to write.

Many of my friends are writers/authors and have considered themselves as such their whole lives. My writing always seems so very simple, lacks complexity, I don’t know that it isn’t very interesting? But, whenever I go back and read it, I am always amazed at what I wrote and it’s messages hidden away that I never even realized I had written.

Sigh, I guess I am trying to find the courage to sign up for the NaNoWriMo, 2 more days to decide.