NaNoWriMo?

What an acronym? Have you ever heard of it? People bandy this expression about as if we're all familiar with it but I'd never have become acquainted with it if it hadn't been for a co-worker who decided the library should be involved in helping future writers achieve their lofty goals. Agree?

Monday night I went to an introduction to National Novel Writing Month, Nov. 1st through the 30th. In it's 10th year, this program encourages those of us who have always thought they had a novel in them to sit down and put their money where their mouth is - so to speak - as no money changes hands. It is a daunting task!

The idea is that, for 30 days, one should write every day putting down a total of 50,000 words by the end of November. Forget about punctuation, grammar, editing, just throw down the words so that you can compete with other future authors all over the world. If you're a winner, you'll be privy to some editing help and ideas on how to get published from the NaNoWriMo folks. According to my friend Andrea, Sara Gruen's book club darling, Water for Elephants, was first written as a NaNoWriMo project. Who knew?

I have a dear friend who's been prompting me to get that novel written, but having attended the intro Monday night, I'm feeling more overwhelmed than ever. I love expository writing, this blogging bit comes so easily to me. But to make something up? Not so much. Still, I've promised to give it a go and may have an amazing personal story, that could be fictionalized, in my repertoire after next Wednesday evening.

Any novelists in training out there should go to the website and sign up. The more the merrier and we can keep eachother's spirits up as we try to have a life, work and write at the same time.

http://www.nanowrimo.org/