NaNoWriMo

I’m doing it — NaNoWriMo.  National Novel Writing Month.  50,000 words in the 30 days of November. “NaNoWriMo is run by a tiny but mighty nonprofit called the Office of Letters and Light,” as they say on their website.  OLL is dedicated to promoting creativity among children and adults by creating writing events.  And have they ever succeeded with NaNoWriMo.  Started 13 years ago, they now have so many participants their 23 servers couldn’t keep up with all the people signing on just before November 1 this year.   Last year “when NaNoWriMo wrapped at November’s end, 200,530 participants had written 2,872,682,109 words, with 37,479 winners blowing through the 50,000-word goal. The staff deemed it an outrageous success, and wasted no time before congregating in a boardroom with bagels aplenty to strategically plan the upcoming year.”

So, this year I’m on board.  I’m letting you know, because you’re probably going to be hearing less from me this month, as most of my writing energy is going into this “thirty days and nights of literary abandon.”  When I checked into the website on Saturday night, after dinner with friends,  there were over 72,000 people online.  Yes, that’s 72,000 people spending at least some of their Saturday night writing a novel in a month.

One thing I’ve learned is that I can write quite fast (well, I already knew that) when I’m not worrying much about how the story is hanging together — up to 1,500 words in an hour.  I’m just telling the story and seeing where it goes.  At 12,574 words, I’m in good shape to get to the 50,000 word mark by midnight on November 30.  And I have an hour right now before I go meet a friend for dinner, and my word count today so far is below 100, so here I go.  NaNo time.