MY BOGGY BLOG: find your way through the murk

Nanowrimo

If you haven't heard of it before, it sounds like a foreign language phrase. Nanowrimo stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it is an event in which folks sign up online and pledge to write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, during the month of November. The point of it all is just to get yourself writing, to push yourself to write fast and furious and not worry about quality. The theory behind Nanowrimo is that many people will say "one day I'd like to write a novel." One day never comes, though. But if you specifically say, "I'm going to write a novel in a month," you have narrowed it down, given yourself a goal. And when you join the online and local communities of people who are also doing Nanowrimo, you find a great support system that helps you to make your goal and makes it fun, too.

On Saturday, I went to a bookfest downtown and Chris Baty, the creator of Nanowrimo 6 years ago, was speaking there and signing his new book about doing a Nanowrimo ("No Plot, No Problem," very funny and practical). He is a tall, bald-in-a-cool-way guy from California (but he grew up in the Midwest so he's a bit more grounded). He's very witty with a great sense of humor, and was truly delighted to meet all of us local Wrimos who came out to see him. He even stuck around an extra day to go to a Nanowrimo party at Z's place on Sunday (I couldn't go).

I did Nanowrimo for the first time last year, and I am signed up again this year. I finished last year on the last day of November, and it was such a high. I danced around the house, and my family all cheered for me. I still have the novel in revision stage and plan to finish it, but now I've got a new one to write in November. Should be fun! Scary, but fun!