October has drawn to a close, signalled by the advent of All Hallows’ Eve with its ghosts, ghouls, black hounds and masked children asking for sweets at the doors of strangers. Next up November (where did this year go?), and you know what that means. It’s National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo), when writers of varying abilities take their dreams of being a novelist firmly in their hands and attempt to write a novel from start to finish of 50,000 words or more. Technically, today is day three of Nanowrimo, but don’t let that stop you joining in the fray. This is the month that word wizards can do anything!
I’ll be honest with you, I’ve never reached the finish line with Nanowrimo, but plenty of people have. Last year over 300,000 people from across the globe took part. They dipped into the lively forms, tracked their stats in fun graphs, received free pep talks and they wrote. And wrote. This year Veronica Roth and Chuck Wendig are mentors. For me, it means writing fast and not overthinking. Because perfectionism can be the very thing that stands between you and finishing your novel. Participating in Nanowrimo means a word count boost and it means that for the month of November, there are people out there who are toiling towards the same dream. The lonely writer in the attic becomes instead a group of writers on an island.
It is magnificent. And never more so when magic happens, like the fact that Hugh Howey’s Wool began as a Nanowrimo novel. Or that Erin Morgenstern’s The Night Circus did too. Especially Morgenstern’s Night Circus. I fell head over heels for the vivid colours of Le Cirque des Rêves, descriptions that appealed to all the senses, the layers of melancholy and hope in a fantastical setting, the whimsy and eccentricities of the world she created. Summit Entertainment and David Heyman, producers of Harry Potter series, have bought the rights to adapt the novel for the big screen. A quick search of Etsy reveals how many products it has inspired, from purses to prints and Kindle sleeves. A new voice, a sprawling fan base and a whole industry sprouting from a seed planted in an internet-based writing event. That is what words can do.
Most of us can only dream of Hugh or Erin’s success, and I remember reading that Erin reworked her novel significantly after Nanowrimo. But here’s the thing. I’m not promising that you can write a masterpiece in the next thirty days. What you can do is get those words on paper. Pull them out of your head and deposit them there. Give birth to your first draft. It’s ready. And so are you.