NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo (http://www.nanowrimo.org/), or National Novel Writing Month for those unfamiliar, is November. The point of the project is to help people along with their everpresent bucket list item of writing a book. In one month, NaNo charges you to write 50,000 pages of original text and provides loads of support and feedback via their website. The challenege isn't to write a finished product, but simply to get something down on paper so that you have a base to work from.

I've been tempted by NaNoWriMo the past two years, but I just can't bring myself to do it. I'm afraid mostly of the commitment. Sure, it's a fictional commitment of sorts and there's no consequences to failure, but if I make the commitment, I will feel terrible if I don't follow through. I also don't want to bring much attention to the my writing process... Which I suppose is ironic given my prediliction to blogging.

It's not the criticism I'm afraid of. I critique just about everything I read or listen to, it'd be a bit hypocritical to not accept the same. It's the die hard commitment I'd have to make, and with what I have on my plate now, it just doesn't seem like the best idea.

And what would I write about? I would stay far away from fantasy and sci-fi even though I enjoy those genres in general. I just can't imagine creating a whole breathing world for one book, nor could I see myself writing within the constraints of someone else's imagined world. I'd almost certainly have to write fictionalized Autobiograhical stories. At least then I'd have a frame of reference and could hash out the story easily enough.

This is not going to be the year I take part in NaNoWriMo. The fiancé is kind of interested in the idea, but I'll have to put it off for another time. If you do it, let me know!