Signed away my sanity

I opened a new post to tell you all about signing away my sanity, only to discover that this is my 400th post. As my dad would say, wacky-do! (No, really. He would actually say that. In public and everything.)

This may be proof that in fact I had no sanity to sign away in the first place, but I have just signed up for NaNoWriMo. Yep, that's National Novel Writing Month, where the aim is to write a 50,000 word novel in November. That's WRITE a 50,000 word novel, not tweak a novel you've already written or finish a novel you've already started. You're supposed to start from scratch on November 1 and aim to finish by midnight (your local time) on November 30.  If you make it to 50,000 words by the deadline you can submit your novel to the website for an official word count and be declared a winner. (Everyone who finishes the word count is a winner. There are no actual prizes.)  Here's an excerpt from the website:

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.


So, this means I shall either abandon my blog in November, or I'll be blogging every single day as a method of writing procrastination.  Frankly, I have my doubts that I can do this and I feel sure I WILL write a lot of crap, but I don't care. I think it's going to be a hoot to give it a go... and as the website says, "Win or lose, you rock for even trying!"




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4 comments:

Givinya De Elba said...

Wacky-doo!

There's no way I'd manage that. You're amazing!

Joy said...

Good for you. Glad I found your blog before November.

Good luck with it all.

Joy

BG said...

Oh, it sounds so fun and crazy. I keep thinking about it- but then I worry it will stop me working on my actual novel and that's probably not the point ;)
But how fun and interesting. Maybe next year!
YOu'll have to put some extracts up for us!

Hippomanic Jen said...

So, this sounds crazy but possibly exciting. I wrote a 10,000 word assignment in a week once, but I couldn't have kept it up to get the 50,000. Go for it!!! You will be my hero if you get the word count, even if it is the same 10,000 words cut and pasted four additional times!

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