“If you are stressing about NanoWrimo, you need to stop, possibly kill off a character and create a new plot line,” Jennifer Wong says, a second-year engineering student who is currently at 15,000 words.
While many Carleton students were out celebrating Halloween, others waited for the stroke of midnight on November 1 to begin their adventure to write a 175-page, 50,000-word novel for National Novel Writing Month (NanoWrimo)
The project was started back in 1999 by program director Chris Baty with 21 participants from the San Francisco Bay Area. He says they wanted to write novels for the same dumb reason 20-somethings start bands.
Although participants can prepare ahead of time in October with character sketches, outlines and research, writers start their stories from scratch and nothing can be officially written until NanoWrimo begins.
To put 50,000 words into perspective, Douglas Adams’ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby are roughly 50,000-words apiece.
For university students, writing a novel on top of studying for tests and writing essays, as well as extracurricular activities seems like setting yourself up for failure.
However, the main focus of the month is quantity rather than quality.
The key to NanoWrimo is that you need to keeping writing whether it’s off the wall or completely mundane, Wong says.
“It’s like playing sports or exercising. You need to stretch your muscles at regular intervals.”
NanoWrimo is much more than a test of time management and perseverance. According to Baty’s book, No Plot, No Problem! having one more thing to do becomes the least of your worries since you already have a bunch of other things to do as well.
In fact, having a looming deadline can be a powerful weapon for a writer. To stay on track, Wrimos need to meet a word count of 1,667 words a day.
But writers aren’t alone this November as municipal liaisons, Scott Delahunt and Lee-Anne O’Reilly are keeping Ottawa writers motivated in their attempts to reach 50,000 words.
“Stickers happened to be a great way to keep people motivated,” Delahunt says whose job as a municipal liaison is partially cheerleading and keeping up morale.
“NanoWrimo was a grind,” says second-year journalism student, Farhan Devji, who had his novel The Hockey Farmer published last year.
His story about an Alberta teen whose farm life conflicts with his aspirations to play in the National Hockey League was inspired by “growing up in Nanaimo, B.C. when my father owned and worked full-time on a poultry farm,” Devji says.
When asked about advice for aspiring writers, Devji says, “Find a routine and stick to it. Set a specific time each night as well as a specific goal and get down to business.”
NanoWrimo is opportunity for writers to turn the idea of one day writing a novel into a reality.
“A friend dared me to try it and I jumped into it without thinking,” says Lauren Guitar, a third-year psychology student who is participating in NanoWrimo for the first time.
“I feel much better now that the plot is progressing,” Guitar says.
She has written 10,000 words so far.
“A lot of it is based on stories my grandmother used to tell me when I was a child.”
Last year for NanoWrimo’s 10th anniversary, only 18 per cent of the roughly 120,000 writers who participated succeeded.
“After crossing the 50,000-word plateau, I really felt like I had accomplished something,” says Devji, who had no idea that his book would be published.
“Don’t worry so much about the number and try to write a minimum per day,” Delahunt says. “And always, always back up your story.”
Chris Baty’s tips and tricks for NanoWrimo
1. Banish your inner editor: NanoWrimo is about quantity not quality when it comes to writing a 175-page, 50,000-word novel. So forget about grammar, spelling and punctuation. Break the rules and be rebellious! Instead just focus on writing and keep reminding yourself – the editing will come later.
2. Carry a pen and notepad: You never know when ideas might come your way. Even the smallest ideas can create huge plotlines. Kill off a character here, throw in a horde of zombies for juxtaposition or an homage to Leonard Nimoy.
3. Create a Magna Carta: Make a list of everything you love to read in novels. Then make a list of everything you hate reading in novels and use these words of wisdom as inspiration and reference for your novel during the month of November.
4. Share With Others: NanoWrimo is about a sense of community. Telling others about your Nano-novel will help keep your spirits high and will help to on your road to success.
5. Write!: In order to make it to 50,000 words you need to write 1,667 a day. Being busy is actually a good thing for your writing. It encourages you to manage your time more efficiently and forces you to stop procrastinating. The world is waiting for your next great novel!