By Matthew Laurrie
Features Assignment Editor
Writing a 50,000-word novel in thirty days. That’s the task participants in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) take on each November. As the words and ideas of possible novels migrate from writer’s minds down to their fingertips, a blank Word document comes alive.
Jess Rehac, a senior education major, said she looks forward to the challenge of constructing a new story every year and said she grows as a writer each time she attempts the feat.
“This is my fourth year doing it,” Rehac said. “When I first started, it was kind of a challenge — a friend of mine had been doing it for five years and she challenged me to do it. I did not write a 50,000 word novel that time – it took me two months to write the novel, but I’ve met the goal every year since.”
Rehac stressed that NaNoWriMo promotes quantity over quality when it comes to writing. The initiative emphasizes getting one’s thoughts down on paper before the editing process begins.
“It’s about getting words on the page and having a first draft written,” Rehac said. “If you talk to people who try to write books, a lot of the time they’ll start and never finish because it drives them crazy to (keep) going back. But if you get it all down in one swoop, you can go back and you can edit and you can take parts out and you can add new things.”
The official National Novel Writing Month website includes amenities, like word count trackers and resources, available to writers in their respective regions. In addition, participants can donate to support literacy initiatives, according to Rehac.
Kaitlyn Pratt, a senior education major, will be participating in NaNoWriMo for the second time. She said the task of completing a novel in just a month is daunting, and although she didn’t perform as well as she would have hoped to last year, she wants to improve this time around.
“I think it’s a challenge and I really like to challenge myself,” Pratt said. “It’s something that I think most people would be proud of – for me, I know I’d be proud of it, especially completing it. I want to at least get further, even if I don’t complete it this time.”
Both Rehac and Pratt said after they finish their novels – which are both in the young adult genre –they have plans to edit them and possibly pursue them further.
JessAnn Persons is the Municipal Liaison for NaNoWriMo in Allegany and Cattaraugus County. Persons said she coordinates different events in the surrounding areas to ensure writers participating in the challenge are staying on track.
“I host weekly write-ins, and then I do pep talks and I make sure that everyone is where they need to be with their novel and have what they need,” she said.
Persons said NaNoWriMo gives participants an opportunity to fulfill a tremendous accomplishment in the literary world.
“It’s basically a month where you do the one thing you’ve always promised yourself to do – write your novel,” she said.
