Guest Post: NaNoWriMo: Inspiring or Counterintuitive?

Article by Alvina Lopez

November is finally here, and that means colder weather, the anticipation of the holidays, and what could be the inspiration every budding novelist needs National Novel Writing Month. If you haven't yet heard of it, NaNoWriMo is an international writing event that started as a simple idea. One writer, Chris Baty, decided he could use a little more community in his novel-writing efforts. The first NaNoWriMo he organized had only 21 participants. Now the event has worldwide following. Last year over 170,000 people participated, writing over two billion words in total.

The idea behind NaNoWriMo is simple. Write a novel of at least 50,000 words in length, and finish it by the end of the month. The National Novel Writing Month websites enables participants to sign up and join a supportive, interactive community. Various cities hold kick-off parties and events at the end of the month to celebrate successes.

The event and organization, however, has its fair share of detractors. Laura Miller recently penned an article in Salon.com arguing against it. She noted:

"Nothing about NaNoWriMo suggests that it's likely to produce more novels I'd want to read. (That said, it has generated one hit, and a big one: "Water for Elephants" by Sara Gruen, who apparently took the part about revision to heart.) The last thing the world needs is more bad books. But even if every one of these 30-day novelists prudently slipped his or her manuscript into a drawer, all the time, energy and resources that go into the enterprise strike me as misplaced."

While Miller makes excellent points in her article, I don't think any serious writer would embark on the NaNoWriMo journey in order to finish a novel and send it straight to publishers. To me, the idea behind NaNoWriMo hinges on the fact that most writers struggle with a case of procrastination that is so deep-seated that they'll never finish anything.

NaNoWriMo enables writers to simply go through the process of writing a novel, to find out for themselves exactly how the structure works. Participants who are serious about writing should then, at the end of the month, either work several months afterwards on editing and revision, as Miller suggests. Or, they can throw it out and begin anew, now armed with the assurance that yes, finishing a novel is indeed possible.

So if you've been tossing a novel idea in your head for awhile, but have yet to come up with any actual text, give the event a try. Or, take a leaf out of the organization's book, and start your own novel writing marathon on your own time frame with a group of writers. As anyone who's tried it knows, writing a novel is a daunting task, no matter how many times you've done it before. If a community and a time frame can serve as the inspiration you need, then go for it.

This guest post is contributed by Alvina Lopez, who writes on the topics of accredited online schools. She welcomes your comments at her email Id: alvina.lopez @gmail.com.