NaNoWriMo & NaBloPoMo
November is here! I think my November is looking to be a grand month. I am very much looking forward to it. The two biggest reasons, outside of my just loving the crisp weather of fall as it bends toward winter, are NaBloPoMo and NaNoWriMo. No, I am fine. I am not choking. Each is a shortened version of a similar concept.
NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month is what it is expanded. The idea is of course to write a novel by the end of November. No, the expectation is not to have a purely polished ready for publication novel, but rather to just have a regular stream of constant writing on your novel idea. By putting down an average of around 1700 words a day, in thirty days you have 50,000 words – a good short novel’s worth of them. The idea is to not get to bogged down on editing and being perfect and instead just get the stream going and consequently the creativity.
I am participating for what is really my second time this year, though I will claim participation in both 2007 and 2008. Reality is that in 2007 I did not even learn of the NaNoWriMo idea until about the middle of the month and without having really prepared things, starting late, and having a lot of stuff going on at the time, it was not going to happen. Last year, well, reality just was there in what seemed to be a double dose. I had a good idea and got a lot of work done early, but I hit hurdles with work and lost focus with various social aspects of life as well. This year, I have the idea I have been sporadically tossing around for most of the last two years and I am ready to go, with even <gasp> notes on plots and main characters.
And just so you know there are tools to track words counts and make into a competition. The only way to win though is the get your 50,000 words down. Of course the only prize is your own self-satisfaction.
NaBloPoMo – Same kind of idea, but with a bit of a twist. The idea was aimed at those that tend toward writing short bits on a more regular basis (like a blog) but do not have the desire to push into a work the length of a novel. The competition if you will is to make a post once a day during the month of November to your own blog.
As I am one of the people who is working on both, I kind of wish it was going on during a different month, but it is also November. I have faith in my abilities though to do both. Actually, I am going to triple threat NaBloPoMo, as I am going to make sure it happens here at Mephistos, but I also plan to relaunch/revive both my other blogs – Traveller’s Haven Farms and the Lance of St. Eligius. I certainly have enough stuff to write about in various notes on all three of them for two months worth.
One note of minor complaint I will make about NaBloPoMo, is a lot of folks get by with little short (almost tweets) blog post. I think that is okay for an occasional one, but why bother if that is the full intent for the month?
Complaint aside, this one does actually have prizes. You have to sign up on the site noted above, but at the end of the month, every blogger that got the thirty posts will be randomly drawn for the list of prizes that is still growing and can be found on the site. Granted, nothing super big in the way of prizes, but a bit of inspiration can go a long way so I hear.
Anyway, see you on the morrow with a new post or two and hopefully throughout the month!
Good luck with both! .-= Ronnica´s last blog ..Worry Shakes =-.
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