Chekhov's Mistress
“NaNoWriMo”
NaNoWriMo is a catchy acronym for National Novel Writing Month.
I first heard of it last week, a day or two into NaNoWriMo, and I thought it totally absurd – based upon my own ideas of what should go into novel writing (expressed best by Mr. N) .
Certainly 50,000 word novels have been written in a month, but I guess my first impression was based upon the fact that the person who told me, a participant, had never written before and had every expectation of getting her novel published. Groupthink: read Ann Lamott, get together with a bunch of folks and churn out a novel. Why not?
Just for the sake of giving the program the benefit of the doubt, I went to the website and at least found some references to educational links. However, it looks more like a promotional gimmick. Chris Batey, NaNoWriMo’s founder, happens to sell a book called No Plot, No Problem. My guess is that the person who profits most from NaNoWriMo is not the white-knuckled novelist, but Mr. Batey.
Signed,
Still Skeptical in Skokie
comments
Bud, I did NaNo the two previous years and it was an interesting and worthwhile experience. A great first draft kind of experience, or alternately a good mind clearing, practice writing in the automatic writing vein.
It’s been going on for a few years now (5 I think). After the years Chris has put into it (and money maintaining the every increasingly busy site) I can’t begrudge him a book (which just came out, so the “promotional gimmick” angle could really only hold true for this one of the 5 years).
And sure, lots and lots of crap comes out of it, but no one’s gonna read most of it anyway (delusions of getting publishes aside).
Was gonna do it again this year, but I have other fiction projects (see my blog) in process and now Gaddis to read, so…
– derik (11/11 at 11:15 AM)
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About this Post
- Posted by: Bud Parr
- Date: November 10, 2004
- Filed Under:
Wise Men Fish Here: Literature
- Comments:1
- Links to this Post: Technorati
