Paperback Writer

As Jari, my favorite Finn in the world, already said on his blog; it's NaNoWriMo time.

NaNoWriMo, as you may, or more likely may not, know is a yearly thing that enables wannabe writers like myself, Jari and thousands of others around the world, to finally actually write something. The idea is quite simple; so many of us who try to write a book get stuck after page 5. The problem is that, even though we may have great ideas, we don't quite know how to move beyond the first stage. Also, we start combing through that first stage so finely that in the end there's nothing left, really. This generally makes us forget about the project and it stops us from imagening ever winning the Booker Prize.

Enter NaNoWriMo (short for National Novel Writing Month). The concept is the following; in one month (specifically November) people taking part are expected to write a book (fiction, non-fiction, thrillers, short stories, romantic novels, anything goes really) of 50 000 words. You start on november 1 at 0;01 and you end on november 31 at 23;59. If you succeed, the only thing you get is the right to gloat. If you lose, well, you lose.

Last year I took part for the first time. I tried to write a novel about two guys, of which one had just killed their mutual best friend (oh relax, he didn't mean to, he was stoned). The two guys were sitting in a car trying to get out of the country, which, obviously is not a bad strategy after you killed somebody. The problem was, that the amount of stuff you can write about two guys sitting in a car, is... well... limited. Needless to say, I learned that the hard way.

An additional problem was that the story took place in the United States, a country I love but I do not live in. This meant that I had to make a lot of stuff up. Sure, with fiction you make most stuff up, but entire landscapes in actual existing towns and places, I dunno. On top of that, I had no clear idea on what I wanted with the characters, loads of papers to write, and classes.

So yes, I failed. Lost. Screwed up. Crashed. Died. At the end of november I had nothing. Nada. Niente.

THIS year, I'm doing it completely different. Instead of one good idea, I have two ideas. One of them could actually lead to a good book, but it's going to be pretty darn difficult to write. The other one, might be very easy to write but it will be nothing special at the same time. For both ideas I have no plot, no characters, no names, no places.......

But! I do have the titles ready. So, basically, I can't think of a reason why this year I'm not going to win the Booker Prize next year.

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For more info visit www.nanowrimo.org