As Gwen announced last week, it’s NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), the annual challenge to write a 175-page (50,000 word) novel during the month of November. How many of you are taking part? We have at least one FWR editor and one contributor on the scene, and so far they’re keeping up with the wordcounts. You’re 1/10 of the way through your novel by now, right?

Right?

Here’s some extra motivation. NaNoWriMo’s profile has risen from Crazy Thing 21 People Did in 1999 to Mass Writing Event in 2008. Last year, NaNoWriMo reported over 120,000 participants, 20,000 of whom finished their novels by the November 30 deadline. With that rise in popularity comes a rise in attention–and publication. In 2006, Gayle Brandeis sold her novel Self Storage, originally written as part of NaNoWriMo, and this past fall Jessica Burkhardt sold her12-book Canterwood Crest YA series based on, yep, a NaNoWriMo novel. And no matter what happens with your book, there’s always the satisfaction of finally doing what you’ve always wanted: writing that novel.

This year, several companies are offering NaNoWriMo participants some technological tools to help along the way. Online self-publisher Fast Pencil will send you a coupon for a free (print) copy of your book if you use their (free) program to write it. Meanwhile, Scrivener–which describes itself as a “a word processor and project management tool created specifically for writers of long texts”–has a special NaNoWriMo trial version, as well as a discount on the full version of the program if you reach your word count. And Amazon’s print-on-demand site CreateSpace is offering writers a free (papreback) proof copy of their completed NaNoWriMo novels.

Full disclosure: Fiction Writers Review does not endorse any of the above services or products and offers the preceding information solely for the possible benefit of our readers (and would-be NaNoWriMo-ers). But people–if you try any of the above, let us know about your experiences!

That’s crazy, I thought. Who would do that?

Then I came up with 10,000 reasons not to do it, including but not limited to my travel schedule in November, my schoolwork, my job, my boyfriend, my family, my nonexistent pets, my imaginary herd of goats, my lack of progress on my current novel, my lack of motivation to try to get an agent for the already finished novel, my commitment to knitting holiday gifts, my commitment to watching bad reality TV, my feelings about my own special-snowflake writing process, my feelings about something involving Mercury in retrograde, my IQ, and everything else I could imagine.

Then I ran out of reasons.

Then I read this on the NaNoWriMo Web site:

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

[T]he glow from making big, messy art, and watching others make big, messy art, lasts for a long, long time. The act of sustained creation does bizarre, wonderful things to you. It changes the way you read. And changes, a little bit, your sense of self. We like that.

And some little crazy part of me thought…yes.

If some little crazy part of you is thinking yes right now too, come find me in the “writing buddies” section; I’m gwen17. We’ll be Fiction Writers writing fiction. I’ll also be posting sporadic blog entries on FWR, and maybe we can cobble together our very own sort of support group/accountability network/complaint forum/sanity maintenance program.

Who’s in?