Nine Months From Now

It’s February, so obviously it’s time to start thinking about November!

About NaNoWriMo

November, as most of you know, is National Novel Writing Month. Affectionately called NaNoWriMo, the goal is to write a 50,000 word book during the month of November.

Despite the name, it’s a world-wide event. Everyone is welcome  and the strong writing community behind it is one of the things that makes it so very successful.

NaNoWriMo does have a few rules.

• NaNoWriMo is absolutely free. They welcome donations to help them with their server upkeep (as you might imagine, their website takes a serious beating in November) but they don’t require any fees.
• Anyone can enter, although they require you to be at  least 13 years old to have an account on their website. Younger writers are encouraged to participate in the Young Writers Program.
• Honor system. It’s EASY to cheat the system and pretend you’ve won. They’re not the novel police, and they don’t try to be. Cheating violates the spirit of NaNoWriMo, though. What’s the point of participating if you’re going to cheat?
• The only “prize” they give is a graphic logo saying you’ve won. You can choose to purchase t-shirts, hats, mugs, buttons, etc – but winning is its own reward.
• If you think you’re writing a novel, so do they.
• You cannot start writing until Midnight plus one minute on November 1st. Not so much as a single “Once upon a time.”

What’s the Point?

The point is to write.

The point is to learn about yourself.

The point is to allow yourself to make mistakes, to be free, to experiment, to suck, and to enjoy doing it.

The point is to realize that you CAN write if you really want to. You CAN find the time, if you really want to.

The point is to act! To stop sitting around and thinking about how someday you’d like to write a book. To sit down and actually DO it!

Why Bother?

“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?”

I HIGHLY recommend reading that link, but the short version of it is – if you haven’t written one yet, what makes you think the clouds will part and a beam of shining light will descend upon you, granting you the clarity and time and vision needed to write later?

ACT.

Cast aside your fear of failure and embrace the certainty that you will need to practice in order to become a better writer. Declare procrastination your enemy, and swear vengeance against it for robbing you of the time you’ve already wasted dreaming about “some day”.

*cue Braveheart music*

In November, we do battle! Not against a country, not against a religion, not against a man. We do battle against our inner demons, against our baser nature that tells us we cannot succeed, and so should not even try.

To arms, my brothers, my sisters of the pen! We march! We fight! We write! We will be victorious!

Support

The key to success in NaNoWriMo is support. We are here for you.

The Saucy Wenches Ning site is our NaNoWriMo headquarters and has been active for two NaNoWriMos now, and it will continue to be active in 2010. The forums are great, but the chat room is even better. We’ll have new folks, folks who’ve been participating for years, winners, people striving for their first win, and people not even participating but there for the fun of it all anyway.

Join us, or become active in your own community’s NaNoWriMo groups. You don’t have to write alone, with no one but yourself to share your joys and your depressions with.

This Blog

FURTHERMORE, I am doing a series of preparation posts on this blog.

You see, last year, I did not join in NaNoWriMo. An unexpected (large) project dropped on my lap at work and I knew I wouldn’t be able to devote the energy to it. That same project will be happening again this year, but I will be prepared for it this time.

You are not required in any way, shape, or form to participate in the preparation posts on this blog. I’d love it if you joined me, but NaNoWriMo is about finding your own way. If you’d like to go into it with a blank slate, you are happily encouraged to do so.

For those (like me) who crave organization and planning, let’s get started now.

This Week’s Challenge

This week’s challenge is easy. In later weeks, the challenges will get more difficult, and will force you to start making some preliminary decisions about what you’ll be writing. But that’s later. For now, I don’t want you to decide what you’re going to write, even so much as picking a genre.

All I want to know is – will you be doing NaNoWriMo in 2010?

I am doing NaNoWriMo 2010. Who’s with me?