NEWS: NaNoWriMo

#NaNoWriMo 

I'm late to the party (again) but if you're a writer-y person you'll have noticed that it is National Novel Writing month. This community project sets users the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.  Based on project director Chris Baty’s philosophy that “The key [to writing a novel in 30 days] is to lower your expectations from ‘best-seller’ to ‘would not make someone vomit,’” it has inspired thousands of people to take part, amassing over a billion words so far.  Donations to the website have also paid for a school library to be built in Vietnam.  As a creative writing project, this scheme is unique, getting those who would not even consider themselves a writer to put together a 175 page novel.  Admittedly, some of the results are not of the best quality, and real literature enthusiasts would have a hard time to separate the rare wheat from the vast amounts of chaff. 

Should you do it? Feelings are mixed. Some feel it pushes the idea of quantity over quality, while others say that surely any writing is better than no writing, and it may spur some on to continue the novel and get it published. Myself, I'm halfway through a project anyway so I'll concentrate on finishing that by the end of November instead.  But maybe I should grow a moustache for Movember...


image: (c) Piotr Bizior http://www.bizior.com/