I’m a NaNoWriMo Participant This Year!

I first heard of the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) last year, but never bothered to investigate it or learn much about it because I figured there was no chance I'd be able to write a novel that would be worth anyone judging for a contest.

As it turns out NaNoWriMo isn't exactly a "judged" contest. It works something like this... Starting on November 1, you begin writing a 50,000 word novel. If you complete and submit that novel by November 31, you're considered a "winner". You receive a "web badge" and downloadable certificate you can print out. Not exactly the greatest prizes, but there are some corporate sponsors offering nice prizes. The makers of the Macintosh writing software "Scrivener" are offering a substantial discount to the winners on December 2, 2009. An on-demand publisher will print a free "proof" copy of your book and bind it for you. They'll also optionally help you sell it via Amazon.com and other outlets.

If you're curious and want to check in on how I'm doing and what I'm writing, here's my profile on the NaNoWriMo site. As of this writing, I'm way behind the goal. On the other hand, I only really started this effort on November 4, so I'm about 3-4 days behind most other participants.