NaNoWriMo: A Novel Idea

NaNoWriMo is all about the magical power of deadlines. Give someone a goal and a goal-minded community and miracles are bound to happen. Pies will be eaten at amazing rates. Alfalfa will be harvested like never before. And novels will be written in a month. ~NaNoWriMo FAQs

Oh my God, oh my God, oh my God! I can’t believe I’m doing this! This is crazy! Madness! Insanity! I signed up to become a 2005 WriMo!

Alright. For those who are scratching their heads and begging to be enlightened, this coming month, November, is the time for budding novelists all over the world to write like mad – it’s the National Novel Writing Month a.k.a. NaNoWriMo (pronounced NAN-no WRY-mo)! Drum rolls, please!

This annual programme was first held in 1999 with just 21 participants. However, the novel concept of writing a 50,000-word novel (pardon the pun) from scratch in a month soon grew so popular that there were a whopping 42,000 participants last year. I have always thought of the idea of writing a novel someday but I couldn’t get started because it’d be a time-consuming project. Think of all the researches you need to do so that you don’t come up with a flimsy plot. Then, creativity is another prerequisite, which I unfortunately lack of.

I heard of this insane novel-writing marathon last year but didn’t have the motivation to participate back then. Admittedly, I doubt it’d be possible for a first-time novelist like me to achieve the feat. I mean, think of shooting for the moon! And I still wanted to retain my sanity!

This year is different. Though I’d say it was rather impulsive of me to make the decision, reading in the newspaper about some of the past WriMo’s gave me some encouragement. Man, this is going to be a rare (correction: once-in-a-year) opportunity to gain a dear experience.

Certainly, writing 50k words in 30 days is going to be a mean feat. (Heck, I made an estimation of the number of words I have posted in my blog and guess what, there’re only 30k in the 60-odd entries posted throughout these ten months!) No doubt it’ll undermine the quality of your work if you were to rush to meet the dateline. Luckily, “it’s all about quantity, not quality”. This is the time to ditch my Libran perfectionism and pour out lots of nonsense.

If I'm just writing 50,000 words of crap, why bother? Why not just write a real novel later, when I have more time? Bingo! This question, which was exactly what I wanted to ask, was found in the FAQs section. Heck, those guys from NaNoWriMo are right! “Novel writing is mostly a "one day" event. As in ‘One day, I'd like to write a novel.’” So, it’s either “start now” or “never”. I don’t know if I’d be able to hit the mark, but I’ll just try.

Anyone interested? Sign up before October 31!

The sad thing is, I may have to put aside blogging for the whole of November. (Sniff, sniff…) So, sorry if I’m not around in the blogosphere when the marathon starts. I promise to find time and drop by every now and then. Cross my heart. But if you really do miss me so much, feel free to send fan mail and love letters to kryptos5@gmail.com.

Cheerio!

P/s: I’ve roughly outlined a nonsensical plot. (Stress: nonsensical. You’ve been warned!) If nothing goes wrong, that is going to be my story. Heh! Expect some surprises!

Update (Friday, 28 October 2005): Plan shelved