Don't Let Your November Go to Waste

I'm a bit slow off the mark here, but you may have noticed that it's November again. Not too much left of 2005, is there. What have you done this year? What have you accomplished? If you're like me, your answer is "Not as much as I wanted to."

But it's not too late! November is National Novel Writing Month. You've already lost a few days, but there's still enough time to sign up to write a novel. NaNoWriMo shoots for 50,000 words in thirty days (if you start today, you've got twenty-six days, but that's plenty), and it defines novel as "a lengthy work of fiction." That's all--if you end November with a work that's 50,000 words and fictional, you've won. If you start out but don't hit 50,000 words by the end of November--you've still won, because no matter how many words you end up with, it'll be a whole lot more than you have right now. But what if some of it's not very good? Actually, that's partly the point. Here's just a bit from NaNoWriMo:

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

In the writing process, you have to get the crap out of the way to make room for the good stuff. If you want to do more with the good stuff later, you're completely welcome to. At least all that crap will have gotten out of the way.

NaNoWriMo, run by Chris Baty, has been around for six years and, according to the FAQ, about 85,000 novels have been attempted, with more than 12,000 completed within the time frame.

You like the artistic challenge but you don't feel you have the literary bent to pull it off? Maybe you're more musical. Then record a solo album. Douglas Wolk has taken Baty's concept and invited musicians in. National Solo Album Month (NaSoAlMo) follows in the tradition of NaNoWriMo and encourages you to write and record a solo album while others are writing novels. The original target length to count as an album was 29:09 (the length of the first Ramones album), but since someone pointed out that Nick Drake's Pink Moon is 28:22, that target now has an asterisk. Sign up now!

So there you go. Two ways of accomplishing something not just in 2005 but by then end of the month. Get going. Time's a wastin'!