Skylar Town: Writing: NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo is the short name for National Novel Writing Month, which takes place each year in November. What is National Novel Writing Month? Well, as their site says, it's fun and crazy way to write a whole novel or at least a good chunk of one in thirty days. A novel is defined as at least 50,000 words, so you're declared a "winner" if you manage to write 50,000 words during the month of November. You don't actually win anything except the knowledge that you actually can be a productive writer once you put your mind (and a looming deadline) to it.

What usually bothers people about NaNoWriMo is that it encourages quantity over quality: no one ever said your 50,000 words had to be good. I believe this attitude a) completely misses the point of the challenge, b) is espoused by people who really have no idea how to be writers, c) belongs to those who take the craft of writing just a little too seriously, or d) all of the above. As for me, I love it. Of course a lot of trash comes out of NaNoWriMo. But see, the great thing about words is that they can't be wasted in rough drafts. They're a renewable resource. At the end of NaNoWriMo you might have the skeleton of a great story. The rushed words and fudged details can always be changed, and those who think a writer needs to get down brilliant words on their first try really doesn't understand the craft of writing.

But the real value of the challenge, for me, lies in the fact that it pushes me out of my comfort zone, makes me write in genres I usually don't write in and use ideas that I probably would never use, simply because I don't have the time to second-guess myself or think "That's stupid." A lot of the time it is stupid, but sometimes it comes out much better than what I was expecting, and that gives me just that little bit more confidence in my own writing. And above all, it's fun. If you can't have some fun when writing, then what's the point?

I've participated in NaNoWriMo since November 2004 (I've won every year since 2005), and I will continue to do so.

What I've written:

2004 - The Eighth Saimar, fantasy. That novel's page can be found here.
2005 - Panacea, fantasy/comedy. Its page can be found here.
2006 - The Academy, fantasy/science fiction. Its page is here.
2007 - Hanging a Lantern, mainstream/metafiction/science fiction. It doesn't have a page yet.
2008 - The Real-Life Adventures of David Cleaner, science fiction. No page yet.
2009 - The Cartographer, fantasy. No page yet.

Links and other NaNo things of interest:

NaNoWriMo.org - The official site
The Zokutou Word Meter - To keep track of how many words you've written, with a handy graphic you can post in a blog or wherever.
Another NaNoWriMo Word Meter - A different graphic.
Truckpoetry.net NaNoWriMo Resources - Get report cards and create characters here.
Zokutou Word Tools - In addition to the word meter, there's also a word counter, word analysis, and a report card as an Excel spreadsheet (the report cards are seriously the best part of NaNoWriMo!).
National Novel Finishing Month Resources - All kinds of name generators, character sheets, word count spreadsheets, and more.
The Dellorathe - My NaNoWriMo LiveJournal. I post my writing efforts to it every year. Must have the journal friended to see the writing.
The Dellorathe (Blogspot edition) - Where I don't post writing but where I do a bit of live blogging during NaNo, recording various milestones, doubts, sudden flashes of inspiration, and how terrible I think my writing is.

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