I’d like to say I have a love/hate relationship with NaNoWriMo, however despite only having a fifty percent win rate over four years, I’ve loved every minute of it, for better and worse.

Let me rewind a little bit for those who haven’t heard of NaNoWriMo, or are unsure how it works.

National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo for short and because as weird as it looks it sounds cool), is a challenge to write a novel in a month. November is always the month, (well the first one was in July,  but barely anyone had heard of this insanity then),  this takes advantage of the crappy mid to late autumn weather.

So what is a novel – talk to different people in the publishing trade and you’ll get different answers. Below is but one:

From Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America’s Nebula guide lines ( http://www.sfwa.org/nebula-awards/rules/ via Wikipedia.org article on Word Counts):

a. ShortStory: less than 7,500 words;
b. Novelette: at least 7,500 words but less than 17,500 words;
c. Novella: at least 17,500 words but less than 40,000 words
d. Novel: 40,000 words or more.

Of course others might have other opinions too, especially when you throw in genres and target audience. NaNoWriMo simplifies all this by saying a novel is a piece of fiction (either as a single body of work or a series),  that has a total length of 50,000 words. Under K.I.S.S. (Keep It Simple Stupid),  this suits the participants just fine.

Now depending on who you are and what you do for a living and hobbies this might sound a lot or not very much at all. Many participants agree so they set their targets as it pleases them based on unbiased ambition, expected distractions (working 8 hours a day is more than enough distraction for me, thank you very much), and how many legs an idea has under it.

Seeing some participants up in six figure word counts isn’t such an unusual sight, however it’s worth a hearty “Hooray” to those that reach such lofty heights.

Now I mention seeing participants, and that’s what makes NaNoWriMo such a special place is it isn’t a challenge in isolation there are thousands of others all desperately seeking word count, and for them a place to call home for a month on the online forums with regional sub-forums , and for that real world contact with fellow aspiring writers there are regional weekly write-ins and some adhoc ones if you need that added support to reach your word count goal.

Oh and if you succeed in this challenge, by single handedly defeat the 50,000 word tall novel dragon, you get a web badge and a certificate to print out. More than that though you get a heady feeling of satisfaction at having won, and a novel you wrote to boot.

If you choose to donate to NaNoWriMo you help support the costly website and the Young Writers Programme (which aims to get kids writing in class rooms).
So that’s NaNoWriMo in a nutshell. My involvement in the competition goes back four years – as an amateur author, (or as I prefer an aspiring author), it’s my annual marathon of words.

So far my form has looked like this:
W-L-L-W

Not great but not bad either all things considered, (I have a very involving day job,  and I have family that I love). Obviously over subsequent years I aim to improve my form by never losing again, but if the last four years have shown me anything its that it’s tough to write completely in isolation. So basically sometimes stuff happens and you have to accept it.

Overall I’ve enjoyed myself even during the losses. I’ve met some great people and as the number of participants grows I meet more. I’ve discovered the joy of fifteen minute word wars where you aim to squeeze as many words in as possible. My best, proudly is an eight hundred and fifty words, next time I do one I’ll aim higher for nine hundred.

Taking part has awakened me to the joy of deadlines,  and positive peer pressure. Plus as bonus I can indulge the part of my brain that loves statistics as I measure my self and utilise the data to improve day on day, year on year.

My writing craft itself has improved as a result of taking part, as I’ve learnt to ignore mistakes as I make them, I find more that I didn’t notice and learn from them. After NaNoWriMo’s have gone I’ve more specific craft to study from perspective and transitions to romance and fights – and styles of the above that sit well with my meagre talent.

I hope I’ll be doing this until I pass from the mortal coil, or I am no longer mentally able.

So that’s me and this NaNoWriMo malarkey. During NaNoWriMo I aim to document in some form my progress,  trials and tribulations, each year.