This year’s National Novel Writing Month—“NanoWriMo”—at http://www.nanowrimo.org is officially launched for 2006! Spend your November writing 50,000 words, and rest assured there are thousands of others, all the way around the world, sharing the stress and the heartache and the triumph with you.
I have an account—I go by “just_like_jacopo” (minus the “” of course) but I’m afraid I don’t have what it takes to respond to the cram challenge; it’s November 2nd, and I don’t even have a plot outline!
But the point, besides getting people writing—the idea is once you just start getting some output, you can worry about writing well later—is also a very progressive principal (and not just for aspiring writers who haven’t written anything with traditional methods.) NanoWriMo is a nonprofit organization that sponsors literacy in poor countries. Half of all their proceeds this year will go to children’s libraries in
Vietnam.
Partnered with Room to Read, this is an enterprise that has had success in the past, as well. Their website says, “The funds we raise will pay for the purchase and transport of 600-800 books in both Vietnamese and English, kid-sized furniture, maps, games, and ongoing librarian training. In the past two years, NaNoWriMo has built three libraries in
Cambodia and seven
Laos.”
So for all you writers out there, or even the non-prolific literacy advocates, this is the site for you! You don’t have to attempt the 50,000 words in 30 days challenge in order to donate, and donations are tax deductible.
So please! Have a heart. And a book… : )
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