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October 13, 2005
NaNoWriMo fun @ my library
National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo (pronounced NA-no-WRI-mo) happens every year in November. Founded in 1999, the challenge put forth by NaNoWriMo is to write a 50,000-word novel, from *scratch*, between midnight on November 1 and midnight on November 30.
It's utter literary insanity driven purely by word count. I was originally challenged to do it by my good friend Rick, and I've tried it 3 times since. The farthest I've ever gotten is 3,500 words, but hey, that leaves a whole lot of space for growth and progress.
Reading, Massachusetts is a community of avid readers. I figured perhaps this community of readers might have budding writers laying in wait for the right push in the right direction. So, I added a workshop to my fall schedule titled "Write a Novel in One Month!", mentioning NaNoWriMo and the library in the description, and hoped people would be interested.
The workshop had 6 signups, but 15 show ups, which is an awesome turnout for a windy, rainy day. I was pleasantly surprised, and had to actually give up my copy of the handout to have enough. The room was unseasonably warm, and with fans running I tried to give as comprehensive a lowdown on NaNoWriMo and the resources RPL would be offering for participants. And people were very interested.
The plan is to block off time in the Conference Room for Wrimo's to attend write-ins at the library, where everyone gets together to share in the delicious torture, or at least support each other through it. We're billing the library as an overall Wrimo-friendly space to all Wrimoers who can make it to the library, not just Reading patrons, whether or not we have a scheduled write-in (I'm making an effort to become a fixture on the NaNoWriMo site regional forums), since we allow food & drink, offer free wifi, and have tons of free parking. Of course, it helps that librarians are always on duty, and that a library is an awesome place for ideas and/or procrastinating.
Using the sign up sheet from the meeting, I put together an email mailing list, to share information about write-ins, writing and publishing resources, and nifty bits off of the NaNoWriMo forums that might be of interest. Even just at the workshop, patrons had ideas and recommendations for resources and tactics to get things going, which is exciting and encouraging.
I'd love to have a volunteer writing group facilitator come in for the write-ins to offer feedback, although I am bouncing around the possibility of asking a few people from the group to help out, instead.
I contacted the NaNoWriMo staff, because I wanted to know if I could alter the Participant Icon to say something like "NaNoWriMo-Friendly Library", and an awesome gent named Hyland replied exuberantly, saying that he'd have the designer come up with a logo specifically for libraries. So if your library would like to bill itself as a Wrimoer's paradise, keep an eye on the NaNoWriMo site for the new icon in the next week. There are also nifty NaNoWriMo signs you can print out and post in and around your library.
The next step? Hopefully to plan or be part of a north of Boston pre-NaNo meet up (there's already one scheduled for Boston Metro), so that we can discuss novel ideas and the art of pre-WriMo outlines. While you can't use a pre-fab writing piece for NaNoWriMo, you are allowed to use outlines and notes, within specific guidelines.
Since the number of participants usually decreases somewhat exponentially throughout November, I'm guessing we'll end up with 4 people by November 30. But you never know, and that doesn't mean it won't be worth trying. We might even end up coming out of NaNoWriMo with a regular writing group. Either way, we'll get people coming to our library.
October 13, 2005 10:04 PM