Category Archives: Short Story

NaShStWriMo Update

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As I mentioned in an earlier post, I decided to participate in National Novel Writing Month this year—but with a twist. Instead of writing a 50,000-word novel, I would attempt a 5,000-word short story. You might think of it this way: if NaNoWriMo were a traditional marathon, NaShStWriMo would be a breezy, 2.6-mile jog. I discovered that I wasn’t the only person proposing a more achievable alternative to drafting a novel in 30 days:

NaShStWriMo tweet

I can proudly report that so far, I have met (nay, modestly exceeded!) my average daily quota of 167 words. Of course, I have had incredible support at home. When I excitedly relayed the news of my early success to my husband, he said, “Okay.” I coached him that a more fitting response would have been, “Good job!” He caught on immediately and flashed me an approving thumbs-up.

Unfortunately, the pacing of my story is off, and I am actually writing the first 5,000 words of a 50,000-word novel. In other words, my ShSt is all beginning, with no middle and end. Still, completing the first tenth of a novel is good, just as running the first tenth of a marathon is good (I have to imagine, as the only running I do is for a bag when my semi-incontinent dog starts to go in the house).

The lesson I have learned in all this is that meeting one’s expectations for oneself feels great, so go ahead and set those expectations low. Despite a little guilt that I would bring down the overall numbers, I felt compelled to record my progress in the NaNoWriMo system. When I entered my word count at the site, various pieces of data related to my effort were conveniently calculated for me:

NaNoWriMo statistics

Of course, most of these figures would be thoroughly disheartening to someone who was doing NaNoWriMo according to the rules. For example, I would have to (quit my job to) write 2,501 words per day in order to finish on time. But the reverse statistic is actually encouraging: at my current rate, I will complete my novel on June 29, 2013.

I am marking my calendar!

What the Heck Is a Nanowrimo?

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When I was in the fifth grade, one of our regular assignments was to find an unusual word in the dictionary and turn it into a multiple-choice question for the class. We were to provide four possible definitions for the word: the actual one and three fabrications. I remember feeling an impish sense of satisfaction when a schoolmate would select one of my made-up meanings. So in the spirit of Miss Brown’s vocabulary-building exercise, I offer the following MCQ:

What does the word nanowrimo mean?

a. A punctuation mark, proposed by English printer Henry Denham in 1580 and used until the early 1600s, indicating a rhetorical question

b. Any of several large, thick-skinned, odd-toed mammals of Africa and India, having one or two upright horns on the snout

c. One billionth of a wrimo

d. Thirty days and nights of literary abandon

If you answered a, b, or c, I applaud you as a very decent human being who graciously took my inane quiz. (If you recognized b as a rhinoceros, extra credit!) The correct response is d. But I sort of tricked you. The proper presentation of the word is NaNoWriMo. The acronym stands for National Novel Writing Month. NaNoWriMo describes itself as a “fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing.” The program began with 21 budding authors in 1999; in 2011, it tracked the progress of over a quarter million “WriMos.”

The Night CircusParticipants start writing on November 1, with the aim of completing a 50,000-word novel (equal to 175 printed pages) by November 30. And it works. National Novel Writing Month has yielded a long list of published novelists. Bestsellers penned during NaNoWriMo include Water for Elephants, by Sara Gruen; and The Night Circus, by Erin Morgenstern. The former was released as a motion picture last year; the latter is in development.

I have considered participating in NaNoWriMo for several Novembers, going so far as to create an account (where years’ worth of unread NaNoMail is waiting for me). Because I finally have a concrete idea for a novel, this year’s event seems perfectly timed. However, there’s an NaNoWriMo logoissue. NaNoWriMo values quantity over quality, “enthusiasm over painstaking craft.” The goal is to produce a crappy first draft, “to forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create.”

Maybe therapy could help, but I am inherently incapable of writing without editing. I have been writing and editing, editing and writing, for over 20 years. The two activities are hopelessly intertwined for me, and my projects rarely involve one without the other.

To compensate for my quirk, I am proposing a scaled-down version of NaNoWriMo. Specifically, a 1:10 scale. My reasoning is that for every ten steps my writing takes me forward, my editing takes me nine steps back. So instead of generating an average of 1,667 hastily chosen words per day, I would shoot for 167 somewhat polished ones. By the end of next month, I would have 5,000 words, the length of a respectable short story.

Does anyone want to do NaShStWriMo with me? The name is catchy, you have to admit.