NaNoWriMo starts today, but I won’t be participating this year.
Maybe next year, after my life is just a little more settled and I’ve spent a year getting my writing chops back.
Writing here, or any non-fiction, is relatively easy for me these days, but writing fiction is another kettle of fish. I used to write all the time and, especially right after college, it flowed easily and well. I would say, in my own estimation, that I was writing fiction at a professional level. Sadly, that time was almost twenty years ago now and those professional-grade fiction writing chops are flabby and sad. So, it’ll take practice.
Incidentally, for those of you who have no idea what I’m talking about NaNoWriMo is short for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is simple; write a 50,000 or better word novel in thirty days.  Why that length? Well, according to the FAQ; “Our experiences since 1999 show that 50,000 is a difficult but doable goal, even for people with full-time jobs and children. The length makes it a short novel. We don’t use the word “novella†because it doesn’t seem to impress people the way “novel†does.” But, also, as I recall, it was because one of the founder’s favorite novels was [amazon_link id=”0060850523″ target=”_blank” container=”” container_class=”” ]Brave New World[/amazon_link] which is about 50,000 words. You can read more about NaNoWriMo at their website.
But, as this is the day I normally link you to free stuff, I’m going to share a post at Apartment Therapy listing Six Apps for Writers doing NaNoWriMo. I have to admit, some of these look like they’d have to be used on an iPad to be really useful, but they’re interesting in any case. There is one for actually writing called “Drafts”, but the one called “Idea Store” for capturing random ideas looks promising. From what it looked, most of these are available on either the IOS or the Android platforms, but you’ll have to follow all the links to be sure. I know they all had IOS versions, which would have me covered.
In any case, if you’re going to participate this year, it’s not too late to get started! And, my intention this month is to share weekly links of writing tools to help you in your work.
Good luck!
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Let the writing begin! | Diary of a Network Geek
[…] Maybe next year, after my life is just a little more settled and I’ve spent a year getting my writing chops back. Writing here, or any non-fiction, is relatively easy for me these days, but writing fiction is another kettle of fish. I used to write all the time and, especially right after college, it flowed easily and well. I would say, in my own estimation, that I was writing fiction at… Read More […]