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November is National Novel Writing Month, by Julie Schaeffer

Wed, 10/28/2009

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As November nears, some people begin to think about Thanksgiving, spending time with their families and the upcoming blitz of the holiday shopping season. But for others, the focus for November is one thing only: getting to 50,000 words in 30 days. Yes, National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is upon us!

Some say that NaNoWriMo is only for masochists. Others point out that it is more of a quantitative exercise then qualitative (and who but literary folk would use such words?). But I think the best description I've read of NaNoWriMo is that you are given 30 days to let your imagination roam free. Maybe aliens land in Mexico or you spend 1,000 words describing a stain on the couch, so what? The most important thing is that NaNoWriMo gets over 100,000 people around the world writing.

Started in 1999, NaNoWriMo may not have produced the best writing ever (to see a list of published NaNoWriMo authors click here) but it has generated a lot of fun. You do not win prizes for completing your 50k but you can bask in your own personal sense of accomplishment and heck, 50k is a lot of words! (To give you some perspective: in order to write 50k in 30 days, you'd have to write about 1,667 words a day, everyday in November to get there, this blog post is maybe one fourth of that number) NaNoWriMo is possibly the mother of all writing challenges.

We at Penguin want you to know that we're here to offer a bit of help. We have no official connection to NaNoWriMo, though some of our employees undoubtedly embark on this foolhardy quest every year (Some do finish! Though not this humble writer...), and we are not, I'm afraid, handing out cybertissues to wipe your tears away when you accidentally kill off the hero of the tale in chapter 34. But we do have books to help you with your writing, no matter what stage you are at or what niche genre you are trying to squeeze your 50k into. You might be psyched and ready to go right now. You may think you're invincible even, but you'll thank us when midway through November you have writer's block. So bookmark this list NaNo-ers.

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