National Novel Writing Month Comes to an End

In April I spoke about the National Novel Writing Month and its manual, No Plot, No Problem. At that time I did not mention that I would be taking the Nanowrimo challenge and writing a novel in November 2007. The month is over and while my novel is not complete, I have passed the fifty thousand word minimum word limit. I am mostly through part 2 of a three part novel entitled Artemis Alexander.

The process has been liberating for me. I am a fan of Kenneth Atchity's approach to writing non-fiction as developed in A Writer's Time, in which the mantra is "Don't write the first word of the first draft until you know the last word of the last draft." This approach has saved me from many false starts and, despite all of the front loading in the writing process, has made my essay writing more efficient.

But I have wanted to try my hand at fiction, and when i have tried the same approach I haven't been able to get anything going.

So starting on November 1st I took the recommendation of Chris Baty in No Plot No Problem. I conjured up some characters, put them in some scenes, and watched them interact, writing as I watched. Things came together surprisingly smoothly.

I have no ambitions for my novel. But the experience was priceless, and I learned a lot about writing I never could have learned by writing philosophical essays -- or reading anything about writing.

National Novel Writing Month

Last night I read Chris Baty's quirky writers guide, No Plot, No Problem. Chris is the founder of National Novel Writing Month (nanowrimo). Every November thousands of writers, from school kids to professionals, write 50,000 word novels (think The Great Gatsby or Of Mice and Men). The rules are simple: You may work for no more than one week prior to November 1st thinking about your novel plot, setting and character, but cannot write a single word of text until November 1st. You must finish by midnight, November 30th. You can submit the mss (scrambled if you wish) to the word count "validator" after November 25th. If your word count is 50K +, you are a "winner". Every year about 17% of the entrants completes a novel. Many have been published (after extensive editing, I am sure), some by first rate publishing houses.

Chris's book is an excellent guide to the writing process. The key to completing a writing project is having a real deadline. Other important factors are being part of something larger than oneself, gaining support from friends and family, making very public commitments which will bring total humiliation in case of failure.

There are nanowrimo groups in hundreds of cities across the US and in many other countries. Nanowrimo also encourages high schoolers to join in the effort and has a national school coordinator.

Nanowrimo makes an ironic commitment to the idea of quantity over quality: 50,000 words and we really don't care how awful. But Chris thinks that the only way to do anything well is, well, to do it. Quality arises out of intelligent effort, and that requires a structured activity with a real deadline.

The best learning experiences involve doing something hard and lonely. Schools specialize in making this just about impossible. Nanowrimo is the real thing! And doing something as lonely as writing a novel is just a tad easier when you can draw on the strength of those thousands of others writing along with you.

This November you can go out to the cafes all over the country, late into the evenings, and see dozens of people typing away furiously on their laptops. Look for copies of No Plot, No Problem sitting next to the coffee mugs. Better yet, you can sign up on the nanowrimo website and write your own novel.