The Silken Tent -- The Soul Ajar

November 1, 2005 Tuesday At left you see a logo announcing that I am a NaNoWriMo participant for 2005. The acronym stands for "National Novel Writing Month," the brainchild of writer Chris Baty (and probably others). As the site states: "National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30. "Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved. Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality." The idea was launched in 1999 and had twenty-one participants, six of whom reached the 50,000 word mark. Last year 42,000 people signed up (I was one), and just under 6,000 were certified "winners." (I was not one.) The offivial "rules" say that while outlines and plot ideas that have been percoalting for a long time are ok, the actual prose of this work is supposed to be written in the month of November only. Last year I went in with the thought of writing a monologue every day, choosing one of the many characters who have presented themselves over the years and just letting them talk. I didn;t get very far, posiibly because of the general blahness (a low grade depression) that overtook me and hung around for several months. I'm better this year, more focused, and I've decided to do NaNoWriMo my way. I have three pages of what is supposed to be a 30 to 50 page "treatment" for the novel I claim to have been writing for three years. (A treatment is a prose rendering of the storyline of a novel, sort of like the endless plot summaries that kids write in school when they're assigned to write a "book report.") I'm counting those words (a little more than 1500). And I'm going from there. Last year, participation in Holidailies helped me get back to posting regularly. I'm hoping that NaNoWriMo will help me keep on writing the treatment for my novel. I won't be posting any of the novel work here (although there is a snippet up at my profile page at the NaNoWriMo site). But I'm promising myself and my readers to post something here every day. See you tomorrow!

November 1, 2005
Tuesday

At left you see a logo announcing that I am a NaNoWriMo participant for 2005. The acronym stands for "National Novel Writing Month," the brainchild of writer Chris Baty (and probably others). As the site states:

"National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

"Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality."

The idea was launched in 1999 and had twenty-one participants, six of whom reached the 50,000 word mark. Last year 42,000 people signed up (I was one), and just under 6,000 were certified "winners." (I was not one.) The offivial "rules" say that while outlines and plot ideas that have been percoalting for a long time are ok, the actual prose of this work is supposed to be written in the month of November only.

Last year I went in with the thought of writing a monologue every day, choosing one of the many characters who have presented themselves over the years and just letting them talk. I didn;t get very far, posiibly because of the general blahness (a low grade depression) that overtook me and hung around for several months. I'm better this year, more focused, and I've decided to do NaNoWriMo my way. I have three pages of what is supposed to be a 30 to 50 page "treatment" for the novel I claim to have been writing for three years. (A treatment is a prose rendering of the storyline of a novel, sort of like the endless plot summaries that kids write in school when they're assigned to write a "book report.") I'm counting those words (a little more than 1500). And I'm going from there.

Last year, participation in Holidailies helped me get back to posting regularly. I'm hoping that NaNoWriMo will help me keep on writing the treatment for my novel. I won't be posting any of the novel work here (although there is a snippet up at my profile page at the NaNoWriMo site). But I'm promising myself and my readers to post something here every day.

See you tomorrow!