San Angeloans to Write Novels in One Month

Somewhere in the metaphorical dusty attic of your brain is an idea for a novel that you’ve thought about on and off for years.

It hasn’t been written down yet because you haven’t had time, you have better things to do, you feel inadequate, no one would read it anyway.

November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a time to turn that dusty thought-novel into something tangible.

The idea is to write an entire novel of 50,000 words or more by Nov. 30 at midnight.

It’s not an easy feat, but it’s a possible one, breaking down to roughtly 1,700 words a day, which is about five pages double-spaced or three single-spaced.

The kicker is that you won’t be alone in your venture. According to Berkley, about 500,000 people across America are expected to join in NaNoWriMo, and the Tom Green County Library is participating as well.

All three branches of the Tom Green County Library will host write-ins for novelists to support and encourage each other’s writing in the month of November, beginning with a kick-off event at the Sugg Community Room, Stephens Central Library, 33 W. Beauregard at 5:00 p.m. Nov. 1.

The website offers tools, tips, forums and encouragement for ‘wrimos’ taking on the challenge, as well as showcases successful, published novels written during National Novel Writing Month.

Many novels written during NaNoWriMo have been published both traditionally and privately.

Examples of a few successful ‘wrimo’ novels are:

• “Persistence of Memory” by Amelia Atwater-Rhodes
• “Water For Elephants” by Sarah Gruen
• “The Night Circus” by Erin Morgenstern

For more information on National Novel Writing Month or to register go to nanowrimo.org.

To find out when write-ins at the local libraries are, visit http://www.tgclibrary.com/tgc/events.asp