It’s Once More Time to Play: NaNoWriMo!

I’m a day late with the announcement but here it is anyhow.  November is National Novel Writing Month, where you force yourself to regurgitate that book in you onto a page in thirty days.  The distinct advantage being that, whether it’s good or not, you’ve got it out. 

Here’s what it’s all about:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

And boy, do we need that.  That inner editor is usually a terrible nuisance.  Nanowrimo.org has certainly grown over the years and includes a sort of podcast, mail, a book, daily inspiration, a blog, and a young writer’s program for all you k-12′ers.  Get one of these nifty badges: