You sometimes hear rumblings of a mysterious wind people fear will topple over slush piles and send manuscripts flying into an abyss with no chance of escape. While agents attempt on various blogs to assure would-be writers that this is not the case, the idea still persists because of something truly wonderful. Midnight Rec: NaNoWriMo Hi, friend. Are you like me? Afraid that you'll never write anything longer than a short story? Scared that you can't possibly sustain a work for long enough to ever really be published? Well have I got a remedy for you. NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month, will be celebrating its 10th anniversary in November, when thousands of would be novelists agree to reach 50,000 words of writing in just one month. Through an online community willing to kick each other in the butts with a sense of cooperative competition, people go beyond the expectations of the event and wind up with complete first drafts of novels. Are they publishable yet? Probably not, as the rules state it must be new writing. Notes can be prepared, outlines drafted, characters sketched, but the writing must be new. This will be my first year participating. I've begun researching different aspects of the story that should be able to sustain 50,000+ words, easily, even though its mainly based on one character's unusual predicament. Will I wind up with a novel when I'm finished? I hope so, though knowing my editing habits, I'll be lucky to survive with a novella once I finish tearing it apart. And that's ok. It's the literary Mt. Everest: write a novel in a month. It seems impossible, but all boils down to one thing: 1667 words a day. That's it. I probably write that between all my different online venues every day anyway. The site will be shutting off new user registration and clearing out the forums starting tomorrow, but will reopen October 1, ready to accept any new challengers for the crown. I'll be there. Will you?

Labels: Midnight Rec