We interrupt this WoW-ing for RL!

While some of my fellow bloggers are getting drunk off their butt (and some just butt hurt*), a question from Warpy yesterday made me realise I had never publicly spoken about the thing sucking away my time.

Part of why I decided to put down the Twig'n'Berries of Healing and won't even be around for the release of Wrath is lack of time, is due to a little event called National Novel Writing Month.

What IS NaNoWriMo?
Upon reading 'National Novel Writing Month', some of you might have thought 'Oh, I've had an idea for a novel for years!' That right there? Is the whole point of NaNoWriMo. Take the month of November and just get it out, baby. All the worries and plotting and 'I can't' 'I don't' reservations and toss them out the window.

30 days. 50,000 words. Toss your inner editor in the closet and unleash your spirit of creativity!

That sounds nuts, and totally unreasonable.
I would agree. But it's part of the strong-arm, unrealistic situation approach that seems to spur people into action. Having risen to the challenge twice, I can tell you it's not that hard. I was still in school, and had a ton of time obligations. 50,000 words over 30 days comes out to be about 1667 words per day, or 6-7 pages in some word processors.

We know that still sounds daunting, but NaNoWrimo has managed to provide a support network and tight community all nine years it's been running. This year is number ten!

But WoW! But WRATH! Hello?
It's TRUE that most of the time you would spend WoW-ing the evening, would be spent writing. I myself haven't even pre-ordered Wrath, in anticipation of NaNoWriMo. It's true, I'm going to be behind the curve.

While WoW is certainly fun, the absolute monster spirit of creativity and excitement that comes with NaNoWriMo is too much to pass up for me. I plan to be involved the entire month, reveling in all the author's success. It's truly an Experience.

So wait, where do you fit into all of this?
Almost seven years ago I stumbled upon NaNo being mentioned on a little social networking site called LiveJournal. I was still in High School and had an awful grasp of the language known as English. I participated in NaNo and won. The novel was absolute crap, but I'd met some people I was going to become super-close with, and was better at English than** ever.

Since then, I've given back to the NaNo community. The IRC chatroom we brought up that year has become the Official NaNo Chat, and I've been a ChanOp from almost Day One (me and my kick/ban button have a close relationship). I've also helped wrangle novelists throughout the month in my former town by participating as a Municipal Liaison.

Will I be actually participating in writing a novel? That remains to be seen. Out of seven years, I've only won twice. The past few years I've been pitifully uninvolved due to RL issues, and yes - WoW. There's no way I could miss the ten year anniversary, however, so we'll see what happens.

Ok, so I might be thinking of it - so what would you say to convince me, and what tips do you have?
Do it if you want to. It's not my intention to bring anyone over to the 'dark side' as it were, merely share something important to me with the rest of you.

If you do plan to do it, and find yourself feeling reservations at any point - just tell yourself 'keep going'. Make 'GO!' your mantra for November.

Stay supported. There are tons of ways to keep close contact with other human beings attempting this as well. The big two: the chatroom (come say hi!) and the forums. These two are inter-connected, forum and webstaff are always chilling with us and vice-versa.

All known noveling regions also have their own special forums where you can communicate with people in your area. If your area's Municipal Liaison is on the ball, there should be optional events for you to attend to meet these people in person. If you need a little personal hand-holding, they're there for that too.

Plus, there's fun stuff like the WrimoRadio podcast and Pep Talks! This year we've got an amazing list of established authors giving us some encouragement, including Phillip Pullman!

Wow, okay!
Hopefully you've gotten a better idea of where I'll be for the month of November! If you do decide to take on the task, look me up in chat!

A big part of NaNo is procrastination, so I'll still be expecting everyone who isn't to be providing me with lots of yummy blog posts to pass the time. :)

* It's ok, they kissed and made up. Apparently it was a joke anyways!

** Than/then their/they're are still some of the most confusing things in the English Language. I still don't get it.