NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month – began November 1st. What started off in the San Francisco Bay area with 21 participants has grown to 172,000 participants (as of day two) this year. About 18% of these entrants will complete their novels. Less than 70 of all authors who have ever entered have had a work published.
How is this effort different than anything else we choose to spend our time pursuing: running a marathon, scrapbooking, competing in Nathan’s hot dog eating contest on Coney Island on Fourth of July?
How was the challenge posed by Lord Byron to Percy Shelley, Mary Wollstonecraft Godwin, Claire Clairmont, and John Polidori different or similar to the challenge of NaNoWriMo? Chris Baty, creator of NaNoWriMo, explains that the key is to lower your expectations “from ‘best-seller’ to ‘would not make someone vomit’ “. In his view, it is all about quantity not quality, for the mere exercise of ‘writing’ makes you better. Also, you can never produce a novel until you produce a novel. Would you agree Mary Shelley had a similar pressure on her to ‘produce’?
Good Luck to everyone who is participating this year. Hopefully, there will be many ‘great books’ produced for us to enjoy in the future.
Hi
Just sharing an fyi… Oprah chose Charles Dickens for her next book club selection:
Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities!
= 🙂 Bunny