Signed up for NaNoWriMo 2009

October 21, 2009 | 3 comments

I decided to participate in this year’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month).

Procrastination knows me by name. I often find myself twiddling with ideas for stories but those only went as far as the drawing board, sometimes literally. The luckier ones got fleshed out in my draft notes but I have yet to put my mind to churning out a proper manuscript.

While it is good to have a good background for a story, it is nothing if the wealth of resources isn’t used to write a story. I enjoy the world building process but I admit that I tend to want to work out every minute detail.

If you’ve never heard of it, this is a brief introduction taken from the official website:

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.

I missed the joy in writing for the fun of it, so I have decided to take a plunge and give NaNoWriMo a try this year. We’ll see how it turns out! Incidentally, this year marks then tenth anniversary of NaNoWriMo. Congratulations, Chris!

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