One thousand, six hundred, sixty-seven words doesn't seem like too large a number. That is, until you realize that number needs to be met every day for 30 days to complete the Nanowrimo challenge.
The goal of the National Novel Writing Month (Nanowrimo) challenge is for participants to write a 50,000 word fiction novel between Nov. 1 and Nov. 30.
The Sudbury Nanowrimo chapter was founded in 2005, and has been led by Shawn Gray since 2008. The number of participants is growing every year. This year, the chapter hopes to continue to increase its numbers, as well as make Sudbury more aware of the literary challenge.
“Last year, we managed a lot of wonderful things,” said Gray. “Thirteen of us beat the Nov. 30 deadline, every write-in was attended by at least five people, (and) two distinct, but overlapping, writing groups were formed.”
Gray noted that the people who came to the writing-based events ended up having a good time and many of the participants of the 2008 challenge have submitted their work for publication.
The Sudbury group has also challenged other regions to “word wars,” where different chapters pit their accumulated word counts against each other. Last year, Sudbury beat North Bay in the word war, and this year they hope to do the same.
They are also comparing word counts with the Ottawa chapter and a New York chapter, as well as the “Ontario Elsewhere” chapter. Ontario Elsewhere is a loose group of individuals who do not have a home chapter.
The National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 as a “fun idea” by Chris Baty and 20 of his friends in California. Ten years later, it is a world-wide event with hundreds of thousands of participants and over 500 chapters. In 2008, Nanowrimo had almost 120,000 participants.
Nanowrimo's Young Writers Program was also created to run with Nanowrimo, allowing younger writers to set a goal they believe is reasonable. The program is specifically geared for writers 17 and younger, or are in a school class that is taking part in the challenge.
Nanowrimo's parent organization, the Office of Letters and Light, also started a second writing-related challenge called Script Frenzy. The challenge in Script Frenzy is to write a 100 page manuscript between April 1 and April 30.
For the first several years, donations made during the Nanowrimo challenge went to covering the costs of the challenge as well as helping create libraries in third world countries. Since incorporating as a charity, however, Nanowrimo donations have gone entirely towards running the programs as well as developing educational content that inspires and encourages reading and writing.
For more information about Nanowrimo, visit www.nanowrimo.org.
