Yes, that crazy time each year when writers attempt to write 50,000 words in the month of November. That equals approximately 1667 words a day, and as many hours as it takes the writer to put out that amount of keystrokes. There are many people who achieve this goal year after year, and then others who never do, but keep trying again year after year. It’s not a contest in the traditional sense; rather each writer competes against themselves, trying to reach that mythical number that equals a short novel.
Personally, I have attempted NaNo several times, and won it twice. There are many writers who criticize NaNoWriMo as being a waste of time, that there is no quality writing being turned out, because after all the goal is quantity rather than quality. I disagree however that there is no quality writing – rough drafts are bad – they just usually are. The important part is to get it out on paper, to get it written down. Then you can go back and work on it, make it quality, make it “good” writing. What I wrote in my attempts was rough and jagged, but there was good stuff under there. One of my “winners” I put a lot of time and effort into revising and it is now a completed novel. All writing is good writing, because even if you never “use” it, or make it into a finished piece you learn from every bit of writing you do.
Since I am not able to actually do NaNoWriMo this year I will blog about it through the month, and talk about some of the things I learned and took away from it in my years of attempting to reach that brass ring.
