Tuesday 1 July 2008

NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is coming up fast. November 1st for those of you who are interested. I’ve decided to have another go at it as I got so much out of the last one. Might boost something that can wan on the odd occassion. I encourage everyone to have a go.

To save you clicking the link let me tell you about it first. (Then click the link).

NaNoWriMo is a non-profit organisation who want you to release your inner writer and give him, or her, free reign. Nothing more than that. How nice. They are also complete bastards for doing this to people however, as the process will hurt a lot more than you might anticipate.

There’s two ways to approach this competition. You can use the true spirit of NaNoWriMo’s framework to actually write down those ideas you have instead of merely thinking about them. At the end of the month you’ll be in raptures, happily riffling through the pages that you’d never have otherwise, and everything’s all jolly with flowers...

OR

...you can forget that bullshit above and do it my way. Extreme angst, competitiveness similar to full contact Karate and total immersion to the detriment of everyone around you. If you’re the driven type who can’t stand being beaten by a Sudoku or that tree stump that won’t come out, or a sibling who’s that much smarter than you, you’re in trouble.

The main competition is going to be...you. Beating this lying, cheating, lazy, whiney person won’t be easy but, once you start you must commit yourself to WIN! Win at all costs! Destroy that flaccid procrastinating self! Use a baseball bat! Kill, death, smash.

Wait a minute. Settle down. You don't really need to tell anyone you’re participating if you’d rather keep it quiet. I find my motivation is stronger when envisaging scenarios where people pounce on my failure to finish and run up and down the street with ‘YOU’RE A LOSER’ written on banners. Paranoia is fun.

You win a special prize if you make the 50,000 words in 30 days. You get to feel good about yourself. Sorry, what’s that? No, it doesn’t suck. It’s perfect. You look so disappointed. You get a certificate if that helps.

There’s no use cheating, you’re only cheating yourself. There’s no judge of your work so you’re free to write any old crap without self-censorship. And no matter what happens, (barring the end of the world, or computer virus), you’ll always have that piece of writing to play with.

Maybe you’ll even turn it into something readable sometime.

(Like it? See - Writing)

2 comments:

SuzyQ said...

I think that telling people that you're doing nanowrimo makes it work better. Even better again is doing it with someone you know so you can get the most out of the (un)healthy competition.
Now you've got me thinking about having another whack at it.

Miss Heather Leigh said...

Wow. That's a great idea. Thank you!!