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Tuesday, 19 December 2006 17:02 |
| John North
Editor & Publisher |
Itës too late for this year, but for those interested, there is an annual writing contest that they might find intriguing.
Specifically, NaNoWriMo is a contest held every November during National Novel Writing Month that challenges authors to write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days.
This year, about 80,000 people entered the contest and nearly 13,000 of them reported finishing the task on time.
Altogether, 982,495,939 words ÇƒÓ an utterly staggering output ÇƒÓ were generated by the contestants this year.
The 50,000-word
count would roughly match the length of "The Great Gatsby" and require
writing an average of 1,667 words per day. What weëre talking about
here is a major commitment with a non-traditional benefit.
The contest was
started by a writer in Oakland, Calif., in 1999, when only 21 people
participated and five finished. Since then, NaNoWriMo has expanded to
250 chapters around the world and has become a nonprofit corporation.
In an
interesting twist, this contest brazenly emphasizes quantity over
quality. Thus, the participants are pushed by ÇƒÓ and obsessed with ǃÓ
word counts. Those who reach the 50,000-word pinnacle in 30 days are
deemed winners.
The few who
claim to have achieved the goal finish by inserting their novels into a
word-count verifier on the official Web site, nanowrimo.org. The words
then are encrypted to avoid theft of the writersë works.
Winners receive an on-line certificate, which states, according to the site, "Win or lose, you rock for even trying."
The contest aims to counter the time-honored clich?© of the struggling, miserable writer laboring grimly in solitude.
To that end,
much of the month includes a series of social events. Morevoer, the
contest encourages writers to commune on-line and via meet-ups and
write-ins.
In my own
experience, however, the professional writers I have known tend to
sneer at writersë conferences and other "literary" socializing,
claiming to be too busy and too financially hard-pressed with other
obligations to partake of such dilettante blathering.
Thus, I canët
help but wonder if NaNoWriMo is just another way for some people to
pose as writers, with all the cach?© that includes. Certainly, putting
quantity over quality has never been the mark of a writing craftsman.
Ultimately, I
wonder what value this contest has, inasmuch as lots of time and effort
is spent, people and tasks are neglected and the result is likely a
meaningless jumble or words, accompanied by the authorës mental
exhaustion.
While many
appear to find NaNoWriMo a challenge, surely they could use their time
better to produce something of quality, which, in turn, would be more
satisfying.
As a telling
sidelight, to me the most amusing aspect of NaNoWriMo is the admission
by some of the authors to spending so much time with their characters
that they often end up hating them and, when possible, kill them off.
Still, I must
concede the possibility, as some participants have noted, that the
contest is beneficial in forcing proscratinators to produce ÇƒÓ and,
possibly, good works might result from it ... Iëm not holding my
breath, though.
ï
John North, publisher and editor of the Daily Planet, may be contacted at publisher-at-ashevilledailyplanet.com.
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