Monday, October 31, 2011

National Novel Writing Month

It seems that most people I know aspire to write a Novel at some point, including me. Writing is a lofty profession and a book or novel is a path to immortality. How many people today know of Jane Austen, Ernest Hemingway, Mark Twain, and Charles Dickens? These writers have achieved a sort of immortality through their writing, as they have written books that even today we read and analyze.

That is why when I found that November is National Novel Writing Month, I signed up to participate. The goal of the site is to write a short novel of about 190 pages within 30 days. While I'm no R.L. Stine or Stephen King, I still think a short novel can still be written in a short time. I'll know for certain in 30 days.

To foster my writing, I've drawn up a short outline of the novel that I'm going to write. It's based on some of my and my wife's encounters while living in a small town in Southern Indiana while I was going to college. Its one of a few stories that I've had bouncing around my head for the last few years. A National Novel Writing Month is just what I need to get one of the stories out of my head.

Writing a novel in a month on top of a busy work schedule will be a trick. In order to facilitate this, I've decided to write the novel in Google Docs, so I will have access to the novel from my laptop, either of my desktop computers, and my phone. I've used Google Docs for some writing before, but never for something as long or complex as a novel. It should prove as a good test to see just how far Web applications have advanced.

Do you have a few story ideas bouncing around your head? Would a National Novel Writing Month help to transfer those ideas to paper?

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