Ah, the deep woodlands of NaNoWriMo.
National Novel Writing Month--or NaNoWriMo, for short, is where participants sit down, stare at the computer, wonder where their muse went, and type out 50,000 words of story. In the month of November.
The thing is--though a lot of people are participating in this event (over 300,000), still the vast majority of mankind (and any type of living organism with a functional cogitative system) can't figure out why we are shunning our family and friends in the name of typing an impromptu, madcap, slapdash novel that, well, stinks.When we could be using our free time to watch Survivor instead.
The thing is, writers are like another different species. Writing is such a geeky activity. After we emerge from the "writing cave", as author Kat Zhang calls it, we deeply resemble humanoid zombies that have just suffered from a 24-hour, transcontinental flight. (those are not fun. seriously.)
But the thing is, when you are pushed out of your comfort zone to type like the world is ending the next day, overhyped by caffeine and chocolate, magic indeed happens. When writing, you change. Some days, you will feel like the dead. You will feel like your story isn't worth it. You'd rather dig your nails out than write another hundred words. But eventually, you will chance upon buried literary treasures that you wouldn't have dared venture towards because of those scary-looking dragons. This month, you take out that sword, and slay your obstacles. You come across genius subplots, quirky characters, and an actual functioning plot.
This month, you will make a creation. A flawed, plotholed, probably cliched creation, but a creation nonetheless.
And you can turn right back to those watching yet another episode of Survivor and say, "This month, I wrote a novel. What did you guys do?"
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