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Wednesday, October 31, 2012

Thursday's Children - It's That Time of Year

Tomorrow marks the start of NaNoWriMo.

I'm not sure how I feel about that - other than I kinda want to punch Chris Baty in the face a little bit (with great amounts of love and respect, of course)for choosing the month of November. Seriously, who thought trying to cram 50K into a month that for many of us involves cooking elaborate feasts, parent/teacher conferences, making and buying of holiday gifts and planning holiday gatherings was a good idea?

Obviously someone who didn't have to worry about those things I'm sure it's painfully apparent that NaNo isn't something I usually participate in...because I'm a fan of sanity. A big fan

 My local writing chapter does a version of NaNo, usually in February or March. We toss in five bucks to participate and for every thousand words we fall short of our goal, we owe another buck. Needless to say, it's pretty good motivation, plus it's held at a more opportune time of year.

However, this year I'm going to participate in November. Well, I'm going to participate in an offshoot version of NaNo. Part of the reason is that I have a book that needs to be written, but a more important reason is because my friend's teenage daughter wants to write a book. She's not comfortable in joining the larger internet community so she's asked that her mom and her mom's writer friends join her so we can all cheer and support each other. If participating in our own version of NaNo will help motivate my friend's daughter to keep writing, I'm in. I know that's something I definitely would have benefited from at that age.

According to the rules she's set up, we'll be checking in with weekly totals. Whoever has the highest word count for the week gets Starbucks cards from everyone else. I think she's planning on drinking a lot of coffee...especially since I'll be helping to put on my local writing chapter's conference this weekend. So wish me luck. I'm gonna need it!

3 comments:

  1. No NaNo for me. I don't have a daily word count goal ever. While a little part of me is slightly jealous of all the mutual hand-holding and head-banging, I just don't think forcing words out will make them any good-not my words, though it clearly works for other people. Also I'm in revising/querying mode right now, not writing a new WIP mode. But your project sounds fun since it's an already existing group of friends. Have fun mentoring :)

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  2. I like your modified goal much better. Writing for a good cause!

    You know that NaNoWriMo was invented by a man. A single man at that. Cooking, cleaning and shopping never entered his mind.

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  3. No NaNo for me, either. I'm an obsessive outliner, so I usually have everything laid out in front of me when I start writing a new section. I don't have a word count goal but I try to write a scene from start to finish in one sitting, whether it's short or long; otherwise I find myself losing the thread or the momentum, or something. Yes, I'm feeling particularly articulate today ;-)

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