Some thoughts for November

Okay, so I don't know how many of you know about this, but if you have the time:

Every November there's this thing called NaNoWriMo which is basically a call to arms for aspiring novelists and writers. Over the 30 days in November, the goal is to write 50,000 words of a novel, and the more after that the better. I've done it for a couple of years now, I can say it's often good fun if you can go to one of the meetings and chat with people as you work - it's great motivation for writing too, and it forces you to bash out a novel quickly and actually get something done which you can edit and polish if you want to.

First things first, I'm wondering if anyone in my group has heard of it and is participating. If you are tell me in the comments, I'm interested in trying to set up some meetings here in Coventry (at the moment, the closest NaNo meets are in Birmingham) as it's always good motivation for writing, even if you're not trying to write a novel, and having people there gives you someone to bounce ideas off and help you out if you get stuck.

Second, I'm going to email Tim Kelly, or talk to him as soon as possible, see if he'll include a link on the poetry and prose section on Moodle, or if I can start a thread in the forums to drum up some interest. On a computer, 50,000 isn't actually that much in a month (1,667 per day, but it takes a whole lot longer on a tablet!) and I'm hopeful that there will be people on other courses who'll be interested too.

Third, if you guys are interested at all (and even if you're not) would you like me to post some excerpts as I write up here? It'd be good to get a critique early on, so I'm able to trim down and edit as soon after I finish as possible (much of what you write ends up being fluff and filler in NaNo), plus which it'll allow you to see some of my non-poetry writing and you'll have something to critique if you feel like you need to improve your peer-reviewing skills (Lord knows I do!).

Those are my points. If you guys have anything to add, or are interested in getting a group together and writing novels, please let me know in the comments and we can find somewhere willing to put us up for the month so we can write. :)

-Tim