Day 12, We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Program...

I'm going to take a break from talking about my NaNo misadventures and talk a little bit about NaNoWriMo itself. (Shut up! This is not because I didn't write anything--again--see my wordcount!). Ahem, where was I? Oh, yeah, NaNoWriMo.

Some of you may be wondering what this thing called NaNoWriMo is all about. National Novel Writing Month? Is there a national holiday I didn't know about? Isn't the name a bit of a misnomer, seeing as how participation is global? Wait a minute, aren't they just encouraging people to write bad novels--what's so great about that?

You can read about the origins and history of NaNoWriMo, at NaNoWriMo.org. Briefly, it was started by Chris Baty and 21 friends in the SF Bay Area in 1999 as a bit of a lark. Year two saw 140 people decide to try writing a 50,000 word novel in the 30 days of November. The phenomenon grew; from 5,000 people in 2001 to 14,000 people in 2002. In 2003, the year I first officially joined up (and the year I wrote over 75,000 words), there were over 25,000 participants. Last year (2008), there were 119,301 adult participants (official participants are defined as people who have signed up on the NaNo website). I'm sure that record will be shattered this year.

Why would so many people sign up to write 50,000 words in 30 days? Do they all want to become serious novelists? Are they all crazy?

I suspect the answers to those questions will be as individual as each participant. Some, like me, are seriously pursuing the goal of being published. Others are just curious to see if they can do it. I can't answer for anyone but myself. It's an incredible personal experience. The challenge of NaNo--50,000 words with a short time limit--is just what I need to silence my inner editor and jumpstart my writing. I've already written 9340 words--more than I've written in a year--and I'm still going strong. I feel, at Day 12, that I've already won, whether or not I reach the official 50,000 word goal on November 30th.

There's another aspect of NaNoWriMo that I'd like to mention--the NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program. This is a month long language arts experience that provides free materials and support to classrooms of kids and teens worldwide. As the website says, it's an experience that "improves self-esteem, teaches perseverance, and radically alters their relationship to writing and literature." It's a fantastic concept. Last year, 600 classrooms and over 20,000 young people participated. This year, they expect over 1,000 classrooms to participate. Did I mention this is free to those classrooms?

If you're curious about the results from this program, check out this 2008 article from the George Lucas Foundation's Edutopia Magazine. It's truly inspiring.

And now for a shameless plug. NaNoWriMo is a US non profit organization and the NaNoWriMo Young Writer's Program is sustained through charitable donations. Please consider making a donation today. As little as $10 can make a difference in keeping this worthwhile program going. You don't even have to write a single word to donate!

Thanks for reading! Tomorrow we'll return you to your regularly scheduled NaNo program. :-)

NaNo Day 12 Words: 662
Total NaNo Words: 9340