For those who have an inner Jonathan Franzen or Joyce Carol Oates, as well as a set of speedy typing fingers, National Novel Writing Month (more colloquially known as NaNoWriMo) begins on November 1st. It's a 30-day challenge: write a 175-page, 50,000-word novel in a month. Sounds nuts? It is. But out of 165,000 participants in last year's NaNoWriMo challenge, over 30,000 people managed to churn out enough pages. Impressive!The goal, urges the NaNoWriMo about page, is not a fully fleshed-out masterpiece à la Gustave Flaubert, but simply the process of "valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft." Writers upload their pieces to the official site and, once the robotic word counters do their thing, get the satisfaction of knowing they've written a work as long as The Old Man and The Sea, if not necessarily as well-crafted. Want in? Register on the NaNoWriMo site.
Text Molly O'Brien
