NaNoWriMo kicks off today. After months of telling myself that I wasn't going to do it this year I decided that I'm going to go ahead and once again try and write 50k words in 30 days. Mostly I'm doing this because I found that in the last month I haven't really been writing and there's no better way to force myself to write everyday then invent an artificial deadline that I can sweat nervously over.
If you're at all interested in writing NaNoWriMo is a great exercise. As Hotgrits says:
Not only is it a great exercise in novel writing, it is also an effective way to force you into the habit of writing every day. Writing a little over 1600 words a day in 30 days, you will encounter (and hopefully overcome) all the major roadblocks novelists face day in and out: writer's block, plotting pitfalls and exhaustion. It's difficult but at the end of the month you will have completed a novel.
The last time I did NaNoWriMo I finished the 50k words as well as finishing the novel (which is often two very different things). The novel I wrote is awful but it taught me everything above and most importantly it taught me how to finish a project, something that I had struggled with since I'd starting writing.
Anyway, it's almost nine on day one and my word count sits at a big fat zero. I'm going to get started.
Posted by Ben Corman at 8:57 PM