Did you know that November is National Novel Writing Month? NaNoWriMo began in 2000 when Chris Baty a freelance writer in San Francisco started a project to promote and encourage creative writing. The idea was to have a group of participants write individual novels over the same one month time period. The first year 140 participated signed up and 29 actually completed the challenge. The following year, in 2001, 5000 participants registered and over 700 completed their novel. Since then, NaNoWriMo has grown to over 400,000 annual participants. Both professional and amateur writers participate, with the idea that all are facing similar obstacles and can lean on one another for feedback, support and encouragement.
Obviously, writing a novel in one month is a very ambitious goal. A novel is defined as a story with at least 50,000 words; if someone were to write a novel during the month of November, they would be averaging over 1,600 words per day. Because this task is so daunting, it would be impossible to apply in the classroom, right? Fortunately, NaNoWriMo has developed a Young Writers’ Program which parallels the novel writing challenge—including a website ywp.nanowrimo.org for the Young Writers Program. The site contains valuable information for youth writers, educators and families. It has novel writing plans for students of various ages and lesson plans to encourage creative writing in their classrooms. - Tricia Lowery