Writers take novel approach

    A group of brave students at GCSU are taking a novel approach to writing, in which they have 30 days to write a 175-page story.
    These students are participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a program based out of California that encourages writers all over the nation to express their creative sides and write a novel in the span of one month.
    “I’m trying to get a lot of people involved,” said Melissa Garner, a sophomore elementary education major.  “I’ve have friends who’ve done it, and I’ve read chunks off their blogs, and  I thought it was really interesting.”
    NaNoWriMo occurs during the entire month of November.  Starting on Nov. 1, all participants in the program have until 11:59 p.m. on Nov. 30 to write a 50,000 -word novel.
    To gather participants in NaNoWriMo, Garner created a Facebook group to attract attention, and has hosted meetings and write-in’s to encourage response.
One such write-in was held on Tues., Nov. 9, in Napier Hall.  The writers who showed up for the meeting exchanged ideas, offered one another encouragement, and commented on how difficult the writing can be.
    “I actually just heard of this,” said Kat Bailey, a sophomore marketing major.  “I’m starting tonight.”
    There are many different strategies that different authors are attempting as they write their novels.
    “My advice is to write what you know,” Garner said.  “If I’ve had a bad day, my character has a bad day.  If I’m happy, my characters are happy.  If I have writers block, I write about writers block.”
    Bailey turned up at the Nov. 9 meeting without a clue as to what she planned to write about.
    “I’m not sure what I’m going to write about,” Bailey said.  “I don’t know any characters.  I’ll probably make it up as I go.”
    Garner approached NaNoWriMo with a basic plan in mind, but she’s described how her story has changed as she has progressed.
    “The main character is basically me,” Garner said.  “I had the characters planned, and the basic plot, but that’s about it.”
    Garner’s plot has changed quite a bit since she began writing.  The story is a love story, in which a woman is trying to win a man’s affections.  That’s how it began.
    “I just got the idea today that I wanted to have this one character be the opposite of my (main) character,” Garner said.  “It’s the same guy who likes both of them.”
    She described her writing as dialogue driven, and as quirky and different. 
    “My story occurs out of order,” Garner said.  “It’s like old Indy films, which I really like.  It allowed me to work in my new character.”
    To participate, the writers have to register at nanowrimo.org.  At the end of the month, they submit their document as a word file, where a machine will check their word count to verify the 50,000-word minimum.
    The website explains that the main purpose of NaNoWriMo is to provide community and incentive to get creative writers to tell their stories.
    “If you don’t do it now, you probably never will,” the website says.   “Novel writing is mostly a ‘one day’ event. As in ‘One day, I’d like to write a novel.’ The structure of NaNoWriMo forces you to put away all those self-defeating worries and START.”
    One reason many people don’t attempt NaNoWriMo is the time commintment.  A month may seem like an incredibly short amount of time to write a 50,000-word novel, but Garner says that’s not the case.
    “(My friends) say, ‘I have to spend too much time studying, I don’t have time to write a novel’,” she said.  “What I tell them is ‘think of all the random things you do during the day when you aren’t working, you can write then.  There’s random moments in your day, always.”
    Garner said that many students are reluctant to try because they don’t think they can do it.
    “(The name) throws a lot of people off,” Garner said. “They think, ‘I’m not a writing major, I can’t do this’, then I tell them anyone can do it.”
    NaNoWriMo runs until Nov. 30.  More information can be found online at nanowrimo.org, and anyone wishing to participate can register online.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 17 2006. Filed under Features. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry