Nanowrimo Who?

Beren deMotier * writer * artist * human

Nanowrimo Who?

I should be sewing costumes while eating mini-Snickers this October morning, my machine humming away on a bolt of fake-fur, micro-fleece or maybe naugahyde, but no, I’m at my computer, procrastinating away my tiny bit of writing time before the kids awake, because I’m scared. Our three children are costume-ready this year; two of them making their own (one vampire, one D & D warrior), and the youngest wearing a leftover costume from his older brother. He says he’s being a dinosaur.

We have three or four dino suits hanging around, might as well use them.

So I am without other justifiable distractions from the literary project looming ahead of me. Something far scarier than a haunted house, another sequel in the Halloween movie series or the challenges of sewing a costume in the likeness of a Japanese anime character; like thousands of other individuals across the world, I am going to write a novel in November.

November is officially “National Novel Writing Month”. Admittedly, the concept is a little odd. For one month, would-be novelists taking part in “Nanowrimo” will pen a hasty fifty thousand word draft of a novel. It doesn’t have to be good. It doesn’t have to be bad. It just has to be fifty thousand words long. Participants symbolically lock up their internal editors for a month in a sealed envelope (mine looked strangely like my mother), and throw perfection to the wind.

For some, it will be a chance to write something frivolous, when they usually pen non-fiction pieces, graduate theses or computer code. For some, it will be a desperate attempt to do what they’ve always dreamed of, and never believed possible: to actually write a book! For me (and other time-deprived writers), it is a do-able chunk of life to devote to a thankless endeavor that may or may not amount to anything, but we really want to do. In my case, write the murder mystery that has been calling me for the last four years.

I am a “nanowrimo” virgin. I was introduced to this concept by an old beau from college who’s done it twice already, and was eager to share the angst and enthusiasm with someone he’s known for, well, twenty-four years. But I’m no stranger to quick fiction. In my early twenties I penned a three-day novel twice, whipping through what turned out to be a wretched romance and then a wretched mystery, both starring my post-old beau collegiate crush Jennifer, who made both a perfect shero and perfect villain since she was tall, dark and handsome. That was before personal computers, and I burned through multiple typewriters borrowed from friends before typing those magic words: “the end”.

Did I do anything with them? No. Did it teach me anything? Yes. That if I wanted to bad enough, I could really be a writer. And that even something so insurmountable could be accomplished if I was willing to work at it.

And it was good, escapist fun. Which is, I suspect, why so many of us eccentric writer types are willing to commit to a book during the busy pre-holiday season, when we could be drinking eggnog lattes and getting our Christmas shopping done early, or helping people in Louisiana who deserve our efforts more, or working on ousting the President of the United States from the oval office via grassroots protest, instead of waking at dawn to stare at an empty page, knowing we need to crank out seven pages by the end of the day or get hopelessly behind.

It is nice to think that thousands of others will be feeling our pain; forty-five thousand people took part last year. Generally an isolated thing leading to depression, anti-social drinking and giving up, writing en masse sounds empowering.

With “nanowrimo” I could enter chat rooms, discuss issues on Forums, or go to Write-ins with the local Nano people, who will understand the blisters on my fingers and the wrinkles around my squinty, sleep-deprived eyes.

I could, but probably won’t. Three kids and a wife keep me hopping and home, but I will know that I’m not alone, and that’s a lot. While I’m struggling with the chapter in which the heroine is trying to figure out how to get out of a sticky situation (since I’ve stuck her in the polar bear tank at the zoo, and she’s pondering the location of her daughter’s band uniform), I will know that somewhere across the city, the nation, the world, another writer will be struggling with something just as silly.

And that, for better or for worse, it will all be over with by December.