NOVEMBER 1 2007
AMERICANWAY 33
B O O K I N G I T
Over parties. “The idea of getting together
online and being part of a community is
very funand so refreshing,” saysLaniDiane
Rich, an author who jump-started her ca-
reer by publishing two of her NaNoWriMo
manuscripts.
The rosy atmosphere helps alleviate the
pressure would-be authors feel to write
something perfect. “We all have such im-
possibly high expectations of ourselves, but
the truth is that every novel that we have
loved started out as amiserable fir t draft,”
Baty says. And the whole purpose behind
the tightdeadlineandseemingly impossible
word count is toget peoplewriting.
“It’s just getting over the hump and do-
ing that
fi
rst thing and being able to say,
‘Hey, I’vewrittenanovel’—and that’spretty
great,” says Martin McClellan, a web de-
signerwhohasparticipated inNaNoWriMo
for the past four years and has reached the
50,000-word goal three times. He’s also
cowrittenascreenplaywithhiswritingpart-
ner,KentBeeson; itplaced in the top 100 in
ProjectGreenlight3
.
Emphasizing quantity over quality may
seem like a guaranteedway of getting page
after page of unreadable drivel. But even
submissions of drivel are okay, Baty says,
adding that most people who participate
are in it just to fl x their creativemusclesor
to say they’ve written a novel. Others, like
McClellan, use theevent aspractice, to tone
and improve their writing. Baty estimates
that only about 20 percent of participants
are dead set on getting their NaNoWriMo
workpublished.
A few people, like Rich and science
fi
c-
tion author James R. Strickland, go into
the month with no expectations and come
out with the novels that start their writing
careers. Rich, a former stay-at-homemom,
signed up on a whim in 2002. “I thought,
I’ll give it a shot,” she says. “Theworst pos-
sible scenariowas that Iwould startwriting
andnot
fi
nish.”Butby theendof themonth,
Rich felt that she had a workable manu-
script. She joined the Romance Writers of
America and soon signed a book deal. Her
fi
rstnovel,
TimeOff forGoodBehavior
,went
on towin theRWA’sBestFirstBookaward.
Strickland revised or rewrote about
two-thirds of his 2004 NaNoWriMo
manuscript,
Looking Glass
. He shopped it
around to different agents before selling it
to a publisher he met at a science
fi
ction
convention. AndSaraGruen, author of the
New York Times
best-seller
Water for El-
ephants
, publishedherNaNoWriMonovel,
FlyingChanges
, in2005.
DEspItE suCCEss stoRIEs
like these,
NaNoWriMo is not without its critics. Eric
Rosenfield, a computer programmer who
runs the literary blog Wet Asphalt, wrote
thepost, “Why IHateNationalNovelWrit-
ing Month, and Why You Should Too,”
claiming the event trivializesnovelwriting.
Rosenfieldemphasizes that he has noth-
ing against the participants and is not at-
tacking their right towrite anovel. “It’s the
attitude that
[
the creators
]
take toward it,”
he says. “Theway that they’re presenting it
indicates tome that they’re not taking the
ideaofwritinganovel seriously.”
Baty, though, has a different perspective.
He doesn’t deny that writing takes dedica-
tion and commitment, but he feels that
dutiful revisions should take place later on.
After the inhibitions are removed, he says,
people can write what they’ve always been
afraid towrite and then “get the genius on
the seconddraft.”
Over the years, NaNoWriMo has grown
beyond its original purpose of simply en-
couraging people to write. For the past
three years, organizers havedonatedhalf of
their net profits (NaNoWriMo has an on-
line store that sellsproducts; it’sa501(c)(3)
nonprofit organization that accepts dona-
tions, and writers can be sponsored much
like runners or walkers can be for charity
races) toRoom toRead, a group dedicated
tobuilding libraries in rural areasof South-
eastAsia.And in2005,Batyandhis friends
launched NaNoWriMo’s K–12 equivalent,
called the YoungWriters Program. Teach-
ers and students set individual word-count
goals and use the event as a way to create
excitement aboutwriting.
Despite the changes to and the growing
popularityofNaNoWriMo,Baty insists that
itsmainpurpose remains simpleyetpower-
ful. “People just sometimes see for the fir t
time that people have a story to tell, and
that they have the perfect voice to tell it,”
he says. “Thismodel ofmonthlong creativ-
ity for everyonehasanamazingpotential to
transform theworld.”
ANgElA ChANg
is a Chicago-basedwriter who had never con-
sideredwriting a novel until she spokewithChrisBaty.
AW
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