News: MoNoWriMo — not a repeat posting
By Wm Morris | 12.21.04
Remember my post on Mormon-themed novels that came about as part of National Novel Writing Month? Well, Lake Mountain Media has decided to issue a write-a-novel-in-a-month challenge specifically to Mormon writers (hat tip to Marny Parkin and Thom Duncan of the AML List).
The target is 50,000 words during the month of January. As LMM points out in their promo letter, that’s only 3,000 words a day for 20 of the days in the month. The link above points you to a forum where participants can commit to participating and provide each other with encouragement and support (and one would hope a healthy dose of peer pressure — nothing helps fuel the muse more than the fear that you won’t have anything to show the people in your writing group).
Why do it?
Because the most difficult part of writing is getting that rough draft completed. Because the world needs more Mormon novels (even if they don’t end up being published). Because it’s better than sitting in front of the TV watching re-runs, waiting for sweeps to start in February. Because Larry Miller isn’t going to back your awesome Mollywood screenplay. Because if you do it and you e-mail me the details [motleyvision AT gmail DOT com], I will post about it here at A Motley Vision.
Am I going to do it?
Nope. I believe in the slow growth model for writers. You write bad poetry during your teens and early twenties (check! double check!). You write decent but derivative (and maybe one or two good) short stories during your mid- to late twenties (partial check…). You write a few great novellas and start a novel during your thirties (cough! cough! mumble…). And then you write your first novel during your forties (I might still make it.). All these people who see their first novel published at the age of 23 just make me sick.
But seriously…
Anyone who participates in MoNoWriMo is welcome to e-mail me:
1. The title
2. Word count
3. A brief [5-12 sentence] synopsis
4. A brief [300 word or less] excerpt (optional)
And I’ll post it here.
12.22.04 | 12:37 pm | comment permalink |
Perhaps we should spend a month doing arithmetic exercises instead, so that we don’t get 50,000 when we multiply 3,000 by 20. :-)
Posted by Mark B.
12.22.04 | 4:37 pm | comment permalink |
Mark:
Shhhh. It’s not bad arithmetic — it’s the little games writers play to psych themselves up.
You do the math wrong and then find out you’ve written more than you thought — that’s a beautiful discovery.
Posted by William Morris