National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo - http://www.nanowrimo.org/) runs every year in November. The basic idea is that many people say “one day I’m going to write a novel” but they never quite manage to even start. If a person is given set parameters, an arbitrary goal, and license to throw quality out the window and replace it with quantity, they will be able to say “Last year I wrote a novel” (even if they can’t say “Last year I wrote a good novel”). The parameters are to write a 50,000 word novel between 12:00 a.m. November 1st and 11:59 pm November 30th. If you personally write a 50,000 word novel from scratch in that time span, you win (or as Paul would say, "You’re a weiner").
This year, somewhere near 80,000 people worldwide signed up to take the challenge. Roughly 30% of those who started their novel finished it in the allotted time. Some people are insane and wrote double, triple or quadruple the goal. Like last year, I crossed the finish line with roughly an hour to spare (Procrastinators of the world unite...maybe tomorrow!)
This year, somewhere near 80,000 people worldwide signed up to take the challenge. Roughly 30% of those who started their novel finished it in the allotted time. Some people are insane and wrote double, triple or quadruple the goal. Like last year, I crossed the finish line with roughly an hour to spare (Procrastinators of the world unite...maybe tomorrow!)
This year, writers around the world logged upwards of 982 million words in the month of November. That's almost a billion bits of creative beauty (or garbage) worldwide. My little piece of the world made a hefty contribution of upwards of five and a half million words and 74 of our 173 participant "won", a 43% win rate. (Stats compiled from official NaNo website data.) This gives me a nice little warm glow as I had the pleasure and pain of being in charge of our area (along with my good friend SarahJanet). Since this was her fourth year of being in charge, I'm not sure how much I contributed, but I'm pretty sure it was....some.
Our TGIO party (Thank God It's Over) was on Saturday, and I actually had quite a good time. For the first time ever, I read an excerpt from my novel. Since I am completely incapable of speaking in any sort of accent (I speak French quite fluently and I can't even do a French accent) I got Paul to read the part of my British main character. I also sang Karaoke, which I normally don't do because of my microphone phobia (I just hate being amplified.) I sang "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun" with SarahJanet, "Tainted Love" all by myself (after crashing and burning at Steppenwolfe's "Magic Carpet Ride"), and then finished off the night with the worlds worst drunken rendition of "Wild Thing" which I thought was the Tone Loc version but was actually the more traditional version by The Troggs. It was drunkenly dreadful. That song should not be on a karaoke playlist anywhere.
I leave you with TGIO photos.
SarahJanet and I two fisting it. She appears to be ahead of me, as usual.
Kiyoshi rocking the air guitar.
Crazy Train air guitar solo.
Wolfy Jeebus the headbanging hair-gnome.
Sarah and Patrick "Had the time of [their] life."
The Lift! (She is killing herself laughing in this photo but didn't drop him.)
We flailed our arms about in the back row to indicate the time was up for each excerpt
(and my time is up for this excerpt. Flail!)
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