NaNoWriMo: A novel idea keeps growing

Debbie Koehler, left, and M.J. Ulmer, 17, type on their laptops during a write-in for National Novel Writing Month at Holy Roast Cafe in Santa Rosa. (BETH SCHLANKER/ The Press Democrat)

A growing group of people across the nation look forward to November every year as the month they finally write that novel, achieving a goal seen as unattainable by most of the rest of us.

Hailed as National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo for short, the event prompts aspiring novelists to throw literary caution to the wind and write furiously to reach 50,000 words in 30 days’ time. They “win” if they accomplish that task; there are no judges or contests involving the content of their novel.

The idea behind NaNoWriMo started in 1999 with a group of friends in Berkeley.

By the second year, NaNoWriMo had an actual website and 140 participants; only 21 crossed the finish line by Nov. 30 with 50,000 words.

In 2011, NaNoWriMo saw 256,618 aspiring novelists across the country, poised over their keyboards, filled with hope. Of that number, 36,843 writers successfully finished before the deadline.

This year, 1,410 writers from Sonoma County are taking part in the madness of writing a novel in 30 days. The common wish is to cross that finish line successfully, and some even look ahead with dreams of getting their work published. But their reasons for taking part in such a grueling challenge vary as widely as the stories they’re writing this month.

“When I began dating my husband, I would ride on the back of his motorcycle as we traveled across country,” said Debbie Hughes, 54, formerly of Petaluma.  “During that time I wrote story after story in my head. I just never put pen to paper or finger to keys, and they stayed in my head.” Hughes and her husband recently retired, choosing to give up an address in favor of traveling the country by RV with the motorcycles towed behind.  “Now that we are retired, and living our dream of traveling it is time for me to dust off a very old dream and check it off my ‘Bucket List’ – that of being an author, not just a dreamer.”