Elizabeth Rose Murray

Essentially, everyone can write. But that doesn’t make everyone a writer.

Yet undeterred, every November, NaNoWrimo (the National Novel Writing Month) arrives and encourages good and bad writers around the world to try and produce 50,000 words in 30 days. I’ve heard lots of readers and writers complain that the internet has opened up a vast amount of self-publishing forums which enable terrible writing to exist publicly. Does NaNoWrimo add to that, or is it a worthwhile venture?

OK, yes. There is bad writing out there – greeting card style poems which allow people to vent their frustrations or deal with a crisis. But surely this has its place? If we vetoed attempts at creativity, we’d never evolve. Although we may be dealing with poorly crafted purple prose, someone has still taken time and effort to create. So long as you recognize that then there’s no harm done, right? We all have our preferences. We don’t all enjoy every single published author. If you don’t want to read it, don’t.

In truth, I think NaNoWriMo is a completely different scenario. The 50,000 word challenge is a huge undertaking which requires dedication. I admire anyone who is willing to put in the amount of effort required to complete such a huge word count in a mere month. The beauty of NaNoWriMo is that people take on the challenge for different reasons. For some, it’s their competitive edge, many enjoy NaNoWriMo as a social activity with friends, while others use it to get a huge word count down for a book they want published.

I’ve completed NaNoWriMo twice before. The first time was to see what it was like to write 50,000 words and the second time was to test whether I’d improved over the year, slogging it out at the computer almost daily. Thankfully, yes I had. But as any writer knows, there’s always more to learn. This year, I want my novel to be written, drafted and sent to publishers by April 2010 – what better way to get the first draft completed?

So whether people intend to be successful writers or whether they’re joining in just for fun, I think NaNoWriMo is a worthwhile enterprise. A word count of 50,000 may not sound like much, to many people, but it’s a huge commitment. Especially since life doesn’t go on hold; it just gets more exciting for a while. Where´s the harm in that?

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