{"id":612,"date":"2012-11-03T19:08:57","date_gmt":"2012-11-03T23:08:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/ivyrun.com\/wordpress\/?p=612"},"modified":"2012-11-03T19:08:57","modified_gmt":"2012-11-03T23:08:57","slug":"some-national-novel-writing-month-fun","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/?p=612","title":{"rendered":"Some National Novel Writing Month Fun"},"content":{"rendered":"

I’m late on this: National Novel Writing Month<\/a> started on Thursday. I actually started a novel! Skipped all the planning and character development and just dove into an opening scene. Now, I’ve been thinking about it for a day and a half and might just write a bit more. I’m not ready to share it publicly nor do I really have a serious plan to write 50,000 words during November.<\/p>\n

I am something of a more cloistered fiction writer than Chris Baty and his friends when they held the first NaNoWriMo<\/a> in 1999:<\/p>\n

But fun? Fun was a revelation. Novel-writing, we had discovered, was just like watching TV. You get a bunch of friends together, load up on caffeine and junk food, and stare at a glowing screen for a couple hours. And a story spins itself out in front of you.<\/p>\n

I think the scene\u2014full of smack-talk and muffin crumbs on our keyboards\u2014would have rightly horrified professional writers. We had taken the cloistered, agonized novel-writing process and transformed it into something that was half literary marathon and half block party.<\/p>\n

We called it noveling. And after the noveling ended on August 1, my sense of what was possible for myself, and those around me, was forever changed. If my friends and I could write passable novels in a month, I knew, anyone could do it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Noveling: it reminds me of one of my favorite Monty Python sketches: Novel Writing<\/a>. \u00a0It’s Thomas Hardy writing Return of the Native<\/em> in front of a live audience.<\/p>\n

And the group approach was reminiscent of a Simpson’s episode called The Book Job<\/a><\/em> where Homer and his friends write a piece of young adult literature with a little bit of culinary help from Neil Gaiman.<\/p>\n

The event has grown into a month-long writing fest with events all over the world. There were numerous write ins in my area being held at Starbucks, Panera Bread, and public libraries.<\/p>\n

Why not give it a try? It’s the perfect 30 Day Challenge.<\/p>\n

A bit of contemporary literary fun for National Novel Writing Month.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m late on this: National Novel Writing Month started on Thursday. I actually started a novel! Skipped all the planning and character development and just dove into an opening scene. Now, I’ve been thinking about it for a day and a half and might just write a bit more. I’m not ready to share it … Continue reading Some National Novel Writing Month Fun<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[42],"tags":[237],"class_list":["post-612","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-writing","tag-national-novel-writing-month"],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4X3L0-9S","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=612"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/612\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=612"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=612"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ivyrun.com\/inanotherplace\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=612"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}