Many folks never consider writing a novel. Even less would consider taking on such a daunting task in a month. But there are a select few that choose to take on this challenge every November. These are the people of the National Novel Writing Month, or the “NaNoWriMo”, which takes place every year in November. As the website so kindly puts it, it is “thirty days and nights of literary abandon!” There really is no other way to put it, because when you have a month to write a 50,000 word novel, you are abandoning everything but writing.

Participants of NaNoWriMo, affectionally known as Nano, such as CHS freshman Emily Lovett, are kind enough to warn new writers of the stress.

“Note that it is impossible to get balance on everything in your life during NaNoWriMo, i.e. social life, grades, sleep, and extra-curricular activities,” Lovett said, a second year participant. “I have cut two of these, sleep and social life. So if you saw me walking around like a zombie, that’s why.”

The novels can be about anything. Participants are free to choose any fictional genre, although all characters must be original and you may not start writing before midnight on Nov. 1. However, you are allowed to outline your novel, which sometimes helps to ease the stress.
CHS sophomore Rilke Griffin, is writing a novel in one month for the second time.

“My novel is about an author whose daughter and husband died in an accident that was partially her fault,” Griffin said. “It is written in the form of letters to her daughter, and it’s about how she came to be a well-known author and all of her misadventures during that time.”

While the name of the event is National Novel Writing Month, it is actually international. Hayley Smith, an author from Lancashire, England, is a second time participant in NaNoWriMo. She won last year and has reached the 50,000 word mark by mid-November this year, although she is still working on her novel.
Many people debate over the hardest part of a novel. While it’s different for every person, oftentimes relatively simple things are the hardest.

“I think [the hardest part about writing a novel] is actually getting the words on the page for me. I have the novel waiting to be written, but I find that I can’t get it down quickly enough. It frustrates me, and I often just want to scrap the whole thing,” Smith said, who is ready to win again this year. “Getting the ideas down is easy in my opinion, but putting them down in some form of order that makes sense is what I struggle with the most.”

While NaNoWriMo is very rewarding, it is definitely a lot of work. Smith believes that the effort is worth it.

“Despite all the stress, the pain, and immense amount of caffeine consumed, [NaNoWriMo] is amazing, and should be tried at least once by all writers,” said Smith.
However, some students wonder if this is a task students should undertake.

“Honestly, unless you want your grades and social life to suffer, I would wait until you are out of high school, college, and a member of normal society,” Griffin said. “I do it [now] because I am completely obsessed with writing.”

(Photo by: Paul Lisker)