It’s a movement that started way back in 1999, when 21 people in the San Francisco area pledged to write a novel in a month. Last year, its 12th, 200,000 aspiring novels the world over made the same pledge, writing some 2.8 billion words, or nigh on 100 million words a day.
It’s National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, and the idea is simple: participants have all 30 days in November to write 50,000 words of a novel. They can plan, they can plot, but they can’t start early and they can’t use any pre-written material in the body of their novel. Other than that, there are few restrictions: any genre is allowed, in any format, any language, using any theme. Writers don’t even need to finish the novel – the 50,000 words can be a partial novel. A manuscript of 50,000 words equates to a short novel of about 175 pages in length amounts to the same length as The Great Gatsby – not a long novel, but a novel nevertheless. Conventionally, the 40,000 word mark distinguishes a novel from a novella.
Though NaNoWriMo isn’t a competition, it does have winners – anyone who completes the task is a winner and, after the word count is verified, their name is added to NaNoWriMo’s winner’s page. The philosophy is simple – quantity trumps quality, the idea being that quality comes later, with careful revision and redrafting. Here’s a list of writers who’ve had their NaNoWriMo novels published.
The State Library of Victoria is asking Victorians to help choose a book that describes the Victorian experience and can represent the state in the 2012 National Year of Reading ‘Our Story’ program.
Using reader voting, ‘Our Story’ will select one book from each Australian state and territory to form the reading list for Australia’s biggest book group. An independent selection committee in each state and territory has created a shortlist of six titles which readers can vote for to determine the book which best represents their region.
The aim, according to State Library director Debra Rosenfeldt, is “to create a collection of books that together describe the Australian experience … Ultimately we hope these eight books will give thousands of readers a greater depth of understanding about what it means to be Australian.”
Votes, which begin today, can be registered online at abc.net.au/yearofreading or at participating libraries and bookshops. Voting continues until 6 January 2012.
The list of eight winning titles and the start of Australia’s biggest book group for the National Year of Reading will be announced on 14 February 2012, at the National Library of Australia in Canberra. After that, existing book groups, new groups and individual readers can go online and register as a member of ‘Our Story’, joining in the discussion about the books the nation has chosen.
The Victorian program is coordinated by the State Library of Victoria in collaboration with the Public Libraries Victoria Network.
Our Story Victorian shortlist:
Bearbrass, Robyn Annear, Black Ink
Sold, Brendan Gullifer, Sleepers
Well Done Those Men, Barry Heard, Scribe
Unpolished Gem, Alice Pung, Black Ink
Radical Melbourne, Jeff & Jill Sparrow, Vulgar Press
The Comfort of Water, Maya Ward, Transit Lounge
