Students find novel writing a ‘wordy endeavor’

November is not only the month of giving thanks, it is also National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo. The goal of the month is for students to write a novel of at least 50,000 words in 30 days.

Sigma Tau Delta, GCSU’s English honor society, is encouraging its members to participate in NaNoWriMo.

Laura Newbern, an assistant professor of the English department, is the faculty advisor of Sigma Tau Delta.

“It’s not really a contest,” Newbern said. “It’s a literary exercise where you just write as much as you can. The whole idea is to write a novel in thirty days, and what that means is that you have to write a whole lot of garbage. I think it’s good because if you put yourself in that situation, you have to write with abandon.”

Newbern thinks that there are two reasons why Sigma Tau Delta is participating.

“They want to get the Sigma Tau Delta name out there as a student organization,” Newbern said, “and because the students think that it’s a wordy endeavor.”

Andrea Judy, a senior English major and member of Sigma Tau Delta, is writing for NaNoWriMo for her third year.

“I always participate,” Judy said. “I’ve yet to actually complete the goal and win.”

Judy has a plan to accomplish her writing and hopes that it does not affect her school life.

“I think I’m going to try and set aside 30 minutes to an hour everyday to write. I don’t know if I’ll actually stick to it. I really hope that I can finish it this year, but it’s a really busy month for papers and things due.”

By the end of November, Judy wants to have finished what she started.

“I want to get the novel out of it. When I was in high school, I actually managed to write a 175 page novel and I’ve never been able to do something like that since. I want to do this again just to prove that I can do it.”

While Suzy Deacon, a senior history major, is not in Sigma Tau Delta, she will be participating in NaNoWriMo for the first time this month.

“I might do a murder mystery. I’ve had that idea bouncing around in my head for a while now.”

Deacon is not able to use any writings that she composed before November.

“If you have outlines and characters and stuff that you haven’t used before, then you can use that,” Deacon said, “but you’re not allowed to use stuff that you’ve previously written down.”

Deacon will not be able to shut herself off from the world while trying to write during the short time span.

“I wish I could, but I can’t,” Deacon said. “I’m pretty sure I would fail some of my classes if I did that. Actually, I am pretty sure I would fail all of them. I am going to try to limit myself to working on the story either on the weekends when I have some free time or when I’m feeling brain dead from writing research papers.”

Deacon is not sure if she will be able to finish her goal in just 30 days.

“The goal is 50,000 words by the end of the month and that would be really cool to do,” Deacon said. “But I think this is geared towards high school kids because in high school it felt like you could shuck off work for a month and do it.”

Even if Deacon does not finish this month, she said she will continue to work on the novel.

“I at least hope to get the startings of a novel out,” Deacon said. “Then I’ll come back later and finish things.”

The winner of NaNoWriMo is awarded a certificate and the satisfaction that comes with writing a novel in just a month’s time.

Posted by Colonnade Archives on Nov 6 2009. 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