The month of November was filled with numerous national holidays or nationally-observed events such as Thanksgiving, Hunger Awareness month and even National Peanut Butter Lover’s month.
But creative writers at Baker University are students focused on an event more relevant to their interests—National Novel Writing Month.
National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is a month-long event in which participants around the world attempt to write a 50,000-word novel.
Sophomore Kate Colby first heard about this event through a high school English teacher and said the event was something she has wanted to try for a while.
“It’s been one of those things that I’ve been interested in various times before, and I’ve been on the website and looked at it, but never really attempted it,” Colby said. “This is the first year that I’ve actually tried it out.”
While writing a novel in just a month may seem like something to be awarded for, there is no prize aside from self-satisfaction.
“It’s not like a contest, like, that you win something,” senior Samantha Moon said. “It’s just, 50,000 words in one month. You get it done. If you get it done, then you win for yourself, and you get, like, bragging rights. But it’s not like you actually get something. You can download a certificate if you win.”
Moon decided to participate in the event after hearing about it from Colby.
While she said she is behind on her novel, she is determined to finish it. Her novel, so far, is about a girl on Earth who finds out she is from a sister universe.
She is chosen to either save or doom her own universe, and in return, make the decision to save or doom Earth.
“It changes every day, though,” Moon said. “Right now, she’s going to save it. Tomorrow, she’s probably going to destroy it, though.”
Moon said NaNoWriMo began around 13 years ago and has progressed into a global-event with around 600,000 participants.
Participants can meet online or in local areas for sessions called “write-ins.”
“Basically, you just hang out with other people who are doing National Write a Novel Month, and you have snacks and you can all compare notes and work on each other’s novels together,” Colby said.
While Colby and Moon have found NaNoWriMo to be a challenging yet engaging task, freshman Sydney Johnston saw her novel take the bottom shelf to studying, homework and tests.
“The reason why I couldn’t stick to it was just because it was getting so close to finals, and I started to get a lot more papers and homework, and I couldn’t really keep up with it,” Johnston said.
Although she found herself focusing on more than just 50,000 words this November, NaNoWriMo is something Johnston wants to try again in the future and hopefully complete.
“I have a hard time with staying motivated and on top of things,” she said. “I jump around with ideas. It would help me a lot more with focusing on one story, which is what I’ll probably try to do next year when it’s November.”
