I’ve tried doing NaNoWriMo once or twice before but failed when more pressing things inevitably came up, but this year I told myself I wouldn’t give myself any excuses. So as of right now I’m a little over 2,000 words into what looks so far to be a truly heinous novel that will never see another reader besides myself. In contrast to my usual writing preparation, I didn’t do much advance planning beyond a few Post-Its with  notes like “magic realism,” “circus freaks,” and “someone dies inconsequentially.” Actually, come to think of it, I’m beginning to understand why my novel-to-be is so dire. Heh.

I know NaNoWriMo isn’t for everyone. I’ve heard people deride NaNo’s preference for quality over quantity, for one. But I don’t think that’s such a terrible thing. One of the hardest parts about writing is getting the words out on the page in the first place, so you might as well churn out as much as you can. And anyway, you’ve got the rest of the year to take it slow and produce a smaller amount of higher-quality content. Plus, I dig NaNoWriMo because its participants are just as foolhardy and idealistic as me, and I like having a month where over a hundred thousand people across the world get together to celebrate the joy of writing. Writing becomes a social event, which I think is neat.

Are any of you doing NaNoWriMo this year? If you are, then (1) we should be freaking writing buddies. And (2) you might find this “Report Card” handy, courtesy of a kind NaNo-er named Buster Benson, who I will name-check here because anyone who wants the Report Card can download it for free. The Report Card is basically an Excel spreadsheet with a whole slew of formulas already programmed in, so that all you have to do is enter your total wordcount at the end of each day to see a visual representation of your overall progress, as well as a guestimate of what date you should finish your novel based on your current rate of progress, among other statistics. If you don’t need to rely on an Excel spreadsheet to tell you how many words you need to write each day, then at the very least the Report Card serves as an effective procrastination tool, which I hear is also a time-honored tradition of NaNoWriMo. It’s oddly satisfying to see your NaNo stats broken down six ways from Sunday. Or maybe that’s just me.