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Remember the long, torturous gap between each release of Harry Potter books we all suffered through?
What J.K. Rowling did not reveal — apart from whatever happened to Luna Lovegood in the final book — included the amount of stress involved in writing seven copious novels. Now imagine writing your own literary masterpiece — at least 100 pages long — in one month, from the midnight of Halloween to midnight on Nov. 30. National Novel Writing Month, usually referred to as NaNoWriMo, is a website-based contest where writers submit 50,000 plus-word novels written in 30 days.
Spewing out 1,667 words a day from your left-side brain proves to be harder than your average Bananagrams match. Many authors spend years developing captivating main characters, twisted plotlines and thought-provoking metaphors: Margaret Mitchell, for instance,
spent eight years on Gone With the Wind, her only novel. Filled with pages of gripping romance and Civil War drama, her writing process was probably nowhere near as easy as the life of a Southern belle. Even though most works do not reach such lengths, writing any novel requires more than typing out your daily Facebook status. Pouring out a plot, from exposition to denouement, not only inspires creativity but can kill writer’s block — you don’t have time for it!
“I had an enjoyable experience,” sophomore Lina Anderson, who entered the contest in 2009 and 2010, said in an email on Oct 17. “I love to write, but I hardly ever get the time. NaNoWriMo gave me a chance to just sit down and write. Since it wasn’t for a school assignment, it was more fun, because I was making myself do it.”
For some students, however, adding a novel to their workload poses a challenge. Fion Lau, a 2008 alumna and current senior at the UC-Berkeley, faced the challenge of two time-consuming scholarly activities when she entered the contest twice. “I often had to ask myself whether I was going to sleep or get more writing done,” she stated in an email Oct. 27. “I succumbed to both throughout the course of the month.”
Even when sleep is sacrificed for writing time, there’s still the rather large obstacle of creating a novel in limited time. "I wasn't used to trying to write so quickly or so prolifically, and it was definitely a struggle, especially the first time around," Lau said. "It was a valuable experience. It's ambitious, and still the biggest writing project I've embarked on. As an event, it's largely about what you make of it. I've recommended NaNoWriMo to people in the past, and I'd do it again."
Sophomore Deidre Foley, a reporter for The Lowell, also faced challenges contending with schoolwork, but appreciated the change to a novel from her normal workload. “It was really fun and stressful, kind of like school, except it was optional,” she said. “I had the choice to stop, but I really wanted to win because it’s something to be proud of. I got to think of an entire fictional story. It was a really nice break from writing essays and doing math homework.”limited time. “I wasn’t used to trying to write so quickly or so prolifically, and it was definitely a struggle, especially the first time around,” Lau said. “It was a valuable experience. It’s ambitious, and still the biggest writing project I’ve embarked on. As an event, it’s largely about what you make it. I've recommended NaNoWriMo to people in the past, and I'd do it again.”
NaNoWriMo, although considered a contest, crowns more than one winner. Works are judged on quantity, not quality, topic, or creativity. So if your novel is 50,000 words or over, then congrats! Download your winner’s certificate and admire your name on the list of victorious authors. “Honestly, my novel never had a plot,” Anderson said. “I had intended to just start writing and let a plot develop, but it never did. My novel was more of a stream-of-consciousness free write.”
If you are planning on cheating your way onto the winner list, don’t prepare to copy-and-paste the longest page on Wikipedia into the submit box. Even though cheat-preventing mechanisms don’t exist in the NaNoWriMo contest, the only real prize is the satisfaction of completing a real book with one fell swoop of the ‘submit’ button: If you want a winner’s certificate you don’t deserve, it’s a bigger shame than a gain.
Want to give yourself a shot at the glory of writing a book, but feeling intimidated by all those coffee-drinking professional authors? Not to worry: NaNoWriMo also hosts a Young Writers Program for students from kindergarteners to seniors in high school, where participants choose just how long their work will be. Despite this added bonus, Anderson still pushed out 52,000 words by setting daily writing goals to accomplish the task. “The ordeal was pretty insane,” she said. “At first I thought it would be easy to write a novel. Usually I would take hours to finish my daily 1,667 words, though, because of writer’s block.”
NaNoWriMo was founded by Chris Baty, a notorious fast writer himself, having authored five novels. The contest began in July, 1999 with only 21 contestants vying for speed-writing glory. Once inaugurated, participation in the contest was hindered because, OMG, in 2001 not everyone owned a computer. By 2008, winners were given a paperback copy of their novels by a self-publishing company called CreateSpace (www.createspace.com), also allowing them the opportunity to sell the work on a website such as Amazon. Over the years, participation has grown exponentially, with 2010’s contest hosting the creative work of over 200,000 individuals.
Along with technological advancements over the years, NaNoWriMo’s online forums have grown steadily, offering a safe place for some author-to-author advice or “collective procrastination” as referred to on NaNoWriMo’s website (www.nanowrimo.org). Even better than online forums, local events organized by volunteers allow participants to meet and offer author-to-author advice. Nationwide, participants rendezvous at a common meeting place such as a participant’s house or local store well past midnight to launch the contest and conclude the month with “Thank God It’s Over,” a pen-tossing final celebration hosted on Nov. 30.
For potential winners of the infamous NaNoWriMo challenge, the time has come to get out your notebooks and start channeling characters in your novel. If careful layouts aren’t on your agenda, stock up on sleep and dream up a wrenching or thrillingly dangerous plot. If this isn’t the way you roll, begin writing your novel on a whim like the word-starved writer you may be. Remember to sign up on NaNoWriMo’s website and have the experience of your soon-to-be-published life. Write your piece of literary splendor, whether it is a full-fledged future classic or book of very long poetry.
A version of this article first appeared in the Nov. 4, 2011 print edition of The Lowell.
Illustrations by Vivian Tong
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