I stumbled across an interesting site the other day. It’s called nanowrimo which is short for National Novel Writing Month. Unfortunately, I appear to be too late this year as the event is held during the month of November. During this time, you sign up to write 50,000 words in one month. The idea being you don’t concentrate on how good your writing is, rather, you concentrate on finishing.

This appeals to me. I mean, really, how many time have you started your novel only to find your self bogged down seaching through your thesarus for the perfect word for the last sentence of the first paragraph. And then, even if you do manage to finish the first chapter, after you sit down and re-read it you through your hands up in disgust and fight your urge to tear the offensive papers to shreds. True to form, I have a whole notebook full of starts and not one finish story.

So nanowrimo appeals to me. You don’t have to write well, that won’t gain you any points. The only way to win is to complete your novel. You can’t use something you’ve already started but must start with word one and work your way through the remaining 49,999. Plot? Not necessary. Character development? Only if it eats up words. But to be able to say, with that nonchalance air, “Oh, my first novel was atrocious dahling. I shudder to recall it.”

So maybe next year, come November, I too will hole up with my computer and pound away furiously just so, at the vary least, I will have one single, complete, from start to finish with everything in-between, novel.