National Novel Writing Month

NaNoWriMo, the abbreviated version of National Novel Writing Month, was designed to help motivate would-be writers to finish a 50,000 word novel within a month's time. While the idea seems impossible, insane even, thousands of people complete this challenge every year.

There are both pros and and cons to being a member in such a contest. The pros include the following: feeling accomplished when you cross the 50,000 word line, turning off your inner editor, and being able to say to yourself that you finally did what you always wanted to do- you wrote a novel.

Crossing the 50,000 word line is fantastic and it creates a thrill since it demonstrates that the participants do have the capacity to tackle such a task.

Being able to turn off the inner editor is a task that most writers find difficult to do. The inner editor is that voice always telling writers that they need to go back and fix a spelling or grammatical mistake and almost seems to force them back to rewrite one line or paragraph until it's perfect. NaNoWriMo forces a writer to turn off the inner editor, because to keep such a voice active would spell chaos- the 50,000 word line would never be crossed.

Also, reaching that 50,000 word line means, for most of the writers participating, that they have completed a novel. And for first time novelists, especially, there is a thrill and confidence that comes from that impossible to explain.

Those are the pros of NaNoWriMo.

The cons are the following: fast-paced writing, no real plot development, no inner editor.

Fast-paced writing is hard for nearly all authors. 50,000 words in a month seems almost ridiculous, if not impossible. And yet, it can be done. But should it be done? Ideas that could be further developed sometimes get pushed under the rug because there's 'no time' to expand on them, no time to develop them more fully. Some writers just aren't built for NaNoWriMo, for such a fast-paced environment, and that isn't a bad thing.

Also, having no real plot makes writing anything difficult. There's a book that goes along with NaNoWriMo, called "No Plot, No Problem," which defines the strategies necessary to get through one month and write 50,000 words. But most of it will end up as gibberish and lots of writers will be dissatisfied wih the novel they have written. It is junk because it was written too fast, and for anyone serious about writing, NaNoWriMo is not the place to go. Serious novelists should take their time and develop their plots.

The last con of NaNoWrimo is the absence of having an inner editor, as they are the voices who help improve a writer's work. Inner editors point out grammatical errors until the writer fixes them so that they're satisfied, and with a real novel, that's definitely not a bad idea.

A serious novel takes time to develop, a good sense of grammatical skills, and the ability to write at your own pace. So if you are a serious writer, NaNoWriMo is not the place you want to be. But if all you want to do is prove to yourself that you can write 50,000 words in a month, then take the challenge and visit the site next November at www.nanowrimo.org and see if you are up to such a fast-paced world.