NaNoWriMo

Our Rockhurst students do a variety of tasks and activities over their four (or so) years. One thing they do a lot of is writing . . . more than they would certainly choose to do on their own. For my job I have to write as well. Today I spent time with my colleage Dr. Tocco working on a case study we are co-authoring. This document is about 7,500 words as we are working on at least or third revision. While I enjoy getting such things completed and published, the work of revising is quite tedious.

This leads me to the month of November, which starts in a couple of hours. November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). People from all over the country sign up on the website, pledging to write a 50,000 + word novel -- in 30 days. This is like running a marathon. I know about this not because I am writing a novel (nor do I have any kind of time or talent to do so) but because my oldest daughter is. For the last few weeks she has been very busy preparing for the event by developing character profiles, doing research (her story is historical), and plotting (read her blog to find out about her novel). She has been working with her younger sister on writing and this sister is signed up for the junior NaNaWrimo -- pledged to write 15,000 words.

What's interesting to me is that both these daughter participants are looking forward to this writing journey; both are doing this in addition to their regular school tasks, household chores, etc. It doesn't count for extra credit. I suspect many of the other participants are the same. Yes, these are marathoners . . . may you all finish the race!