Cheating at NaNoWriMo (Long Live PaBeShStMo)
28 Oct
NaNoWriMo is the still lengthy nickname for National Novel Writing Month. Writers all over the country (and some overseas strays) sign up to pledge that they will write 50,000 words of a novel between November 1st and midnight on November 30th. Entry is free, prizes are naught, and enthusiasm is high.
I signed up for NaNoWriMo but realized as I was hitting the submit button that I have no need to write a novel now. I don’t have an idea at the moment that I feel I can carry through 50,000 words without losing quality or my mind. But what I do have is a fuckton* of short story ideas that keep piling up on top of each other. Story ideas that are fully mapped out in my brain but just need to get onto paper.
So I decided to do NaNoWriMo my way- as PaBeShStMo (Parker Betz Short Story Month, though it might also be the name of an imported ale). I will still write 50,000 words. At a rough estimate of 4,000 words per story, that gives me a loose goal of 13 stories (rounding up).
Am I missing out by not participating NaNoWriMo in the way it is intended? Possibly, but doubtful. I’m very sure that having thirteen short story drafts at the beginning of December is going to be more useful than having a novel I’m going to chuck into the virtual recycling bin.
I have three days to finish up the two drafts I have near completion now so they don’t get mowed over during PaBeShStMo. Then it is off onto a madcap race through dirigibles, yellow fever, brittle bone disease, and Tennessee Williams references. Not in the same story. (Yet.)
*SI unit equivalent to 1000 kilofucks.
If you write 50 thousand words, it’s still 50 thousand words… OK, not a novel in classification, but a novel in writing.
Good luck soldier!
Thanks! I’d be thrilled with myself if I managed to write “All work and no play” enough times to make up 50 thousand. I’ll be running a victory lap if I make it to the goal with actual, wordy content.