Or NaNoWriMo, for short. I first heard about this from a fellow English major at school a few years ago and have wanted to participate ever since. The idea is to spend the entire month writing as much of an original novel as possible, with the goal of penning 50,000 words in 30 days. Unfortunately, while I was at school writing essays and designing projects, there was absolutely no free time to sit around and write a novel. Now that I've graduated and have a little more time on my hands I have decided that this is the year I will attempt my first novel.
Coming up with an idea for a story is always the hardest part for me as a writer. Once I have a plot and characters I know which direction they need to go, but getting to that point is the challenge. I haven't really written any fiction stories since the Creative Writing class I took in 2005 - everything I've done has been nonfiction or critical analysis. Or blog posts.
Which is where I found the concept for my novel! Looking back through the archives I found the one fictional thing I started, a scene I was inspired to write after seeing a commercial on late night television (which you can read here). The commercial was advertising some online dating site, and got me to thinking about how unequal things seem to be in the online dating world. In late night commercials especially, all the women going online to find a man are super attractive and scantily dressed. And the type of guys watching late night TV wishing they had a girlfriend probably aren't the cream of the crop. There has got to be a story there, right?
My thoughts exactly. So my novel is going to be about a woman named Suzanne who uses the guys who contact her through her online profile to get a free dinner and a boost of self-esteem before informing them that things aren't going to work out. I'm still fleshing out my characters and learning how they interact with each other, and then I'll start working out the outline for the chapters. I can't officially start writing until the early hours of November first, but until then I'll be doing as much research and brainstorming as I can. And if you happen to think of a great title, let me know! I haven't come up with one yet.
You can sign up or read more about NaNoWriMo at www.nanowrimo.org.
