Daily Archives: October 19, 2009

Are you ready for some NaNo

by Monica Stoner, member at large

What’s NaNo?

A month of not always controlled insanity, where you put aside everything but your creativity. Words flow from your creativity to the screen, without stopping for filtering by your brain. Why no filtering? Mainly because we are our own worst enemies when it comes to finding reasons not to write, and the best reason we can come up with is “It’s not quite good enough.”

NaNo grants you permission to write badly. Permission to throw words on a page and see what sticks. Permission to make up characters on the fly, change their hair color, change their names, and plot without logic.

For those who outline in detail prior to putting the first word on the page, NaNo can be either frightening or exhilarating, or a heady combination of both. For those “pantsers”, writing by the seat of their pants and catching up with logic later, NaNo can bring a sense of camaraderie. After all, they’re pantsing with millions of people around the world. Most of all, NaNo gives a reason, or maybe an excuse, to write.

At the end of the month, those who have achieved the minimum goal of 50,000 words in the sprint marathon writing challenge can tell the writing world they’ve established and reached a goal, and in the process have at least the bare bones of a real, finished book.

And isn’t that better than spending the month watching re-runs?

For more information on NaNo, including how to sign up, go to: http://www.nanowrimo.org/

Monica Stoner
tsent@ix.netcom.com
You have enemies? Good. That means you’ve stood up for something.
-Winston Churchill