NaNo

It's weird but true: I'm already looking forward to November. November is NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. The 'Na' (National) is a bit silly because it is now all over the globe but the idea stays the same. Participants aim to write a 50,000 words novel within the 30 days of November. Everyone who makes it to 50,000 - regardless of quality or even coherence - is declared a 'Winner'. And yep! I was a winner last year. So proud.

The idea behind NaNo for me is to get into the habit of daily writing. In order to produce the daily wordcount one really needs to focus, accept any idea that comes into one's head, and most of all one needs to silence that creepy inner critic that usually smacks dead anything in the area of fiction writing one ever does.

Not that it needs to be fiction, by the way! People on NaNo write whatever they like, sometimes not even novels but essays or whatever else strikes their fancy. This is all hearsay from the participants themselves because you don't share the actual text of the 'novel' (or whatever else) online. All you do is enter the text you have every day and the wordcount shows up. Neat stats do the rest.

The NaNo provides participants with a drive, a goal, and a way to hold themselves accountable. At least that's how I use it. Besides: it's fun! It is incredible fun to laugh at that aforementioned critic and write down the most hideous excruciating toe-curling piece of word-crap imaginable and just don't care as long as you get the number of words required for the day. Let the story tell itself, introduce a new character here and there and when the going gets tough let something silly happen, or allow the characters to say the cheesiest things, or describe the meal they are having even if it has no relation at all to the story... It doesn't matter! All we need is 1,666 words a day. Huzzah!

Can't wait.