NaNoWriMo

Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month? Well, until two days ago, neither did I. At least not in any way that had any affect on my life.  Then I read someone's facebook status and found out that NaNoWriMo (as it's less formally called) is celebrated by pushing yourself to write an entire novel in one month.

And for some reason I decided to participate.

The rules are pretty simple (hot from the NaNoWriMo website):

• Write a 50,000-word (or longer!) novel, between November 1 and November 30.
• Start from scratch. None of your own previously written prose can be included in your NaNoWriMo draft (though outlines, character sketches, and research are all fine, as are citations from other people’s works).
• Write a novel. We define a novel as a lengthy work of fiction. If you consider the book you’re writing a novel, we consider it a novel too!
• Be the sole author of your novel. Apart from those citations mentioned two bullet-points up.
• Write more than one word repeated 50,000 times.
• Upload your novel for word-count validation to our site between November 25 and November 30.

However, nowhere in the rules does it say that the novel has to be any good.  The point is output rather than quality.

So.  That's that.  I'm on day three.  I'll be posting my progress on the blog, here, or on the link at the top of this blog.  I make no claims that it's any good at all. But since I have to write something like 1,667 words a day, I'm going to pretend that this will keep me accountable.

Please do not ask why I picked "literary fiction" as my genre of choice. I really, really, should have gone with "zombie apocalypse averted by magical Amazons on unicorns."

Next year.