In the cold month of November, authors, novices, and even the occasional fanfiction writers find solace in an event sanctioned as National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short.
“The goal of NaNoWrimMo is for writers to produce at least 50, 000 words in the month of November,” creative writing teacher Melinda Buchannan said.
NaNoWriMo began on November 1st at 12:00 AM and ended on November 30 at 11:59 PM, and anyone who writes 50,000 words is an instant winner. However, the rules of the contest designate that this must be a work that you have not written before, and you cannot be near the goal prior to the event. Detailed planning is allowed, but other than that authors are encouraged to start their stories fresh.
Several students from the creative writing class participated in the event last month.
“Some of them participated in it, but not all of them,” Buchanan said. “I had one student who had participated in it in the past, and she has participated in it again this year. Those students who did not formally participate, however, visited the NaNoWriMo website and were given ideas for their own writing.”
Those who participated enjoyed the event, but many had trouble finishing their stories.
“It was a fun experience,” senior Michelle Hess said. “Although I quit half-way through the month at around 10,000 words.”
The motto for writers who don’t know where to start is “No plot, no problem!” This motto calls for much debate on whether the event helps writers or not. Those in the publishing industry do not enjoy NaNoWriMo, as authors can write whatever they want, and can write terrible stories at that. Not to say that good stories haven’t come out of NaNoWriMo, but many “aspiring” authors can write awful literature.
“It can be good or bad,” senior Addie Kenney said. “It depends on what kind of environment you write under. It can make you a stronger writer if your goal is to process out stuff as fast as you can, but if you need more time to plan, it could make you weaker because you get stressed out.”
Still, the NaNoWriMo event has created quite the community. Prior to 2011, they had an event in April, dubbed as “Script Frenzy.” They also have a page for young authors who wish to participate in the event next year.
