November is [Inter]National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short). It has been so for years (since 1999, to be exact) and was started up by a guy named Chris Baty who wanted to write a novel in a month just to see if he could do it. It's centered around the non-profit website (though they do have a shop and accept donations, etc.) which encourages people to, in the month of November, write a 50k word novel (approx. 1667 words a day). It's meant to get people to start writing, so at the end of the month they can start editing a work they may otherwise have never written.
It originally was held in May, among the maybe-100 people who knew about it. The idea was to write one short story a day, of at least 200 words (which, if you didn't know, is about two good paragraphs). By the end of the month, participants would have 31 new short stories ready to edit, adjust, and send off to magazines or contests or whatever.
It wasn't well known, so it didn't really catch on with anyone, until this last March a popular blogger found out and posted an article urging his readers to participate. Since he posted it in late March, however, everyone got the idea (himself included, I believe) that NaShoStoMo would be in April. He had maybe 100 good followers, who decided to join him in the Short Story-Writing mission, which about double the amount of NaShoStoMo participants. They used Twitter to communicate and report their successes (#NaShoStoMo).
That's where I came in. Though I don't have a Twitter account, one of my brothers does, and he called me earlier this month asking if I'd ever heard of this. I hadn't, and I did some research to see what was going on. The idea seemed wonderful to me, especially since I really enjoy writing short stories, and haven't written enough. I was confused, however, with the conflicting dates in the past, and eventually found out the reason.
It turns out, April is also Script Frenzy (100-page script in a month) and National Poetry Month (poem-a-day). If NaShoStoMo catches on as an April activity, that'll make three semi-major writing challenges in one month, a little more than a single month can handle, in my opinion. So, in an effort to [hopefully] increase its popularity and push it back into May, I've decided to join in. Of course I'm also joining to increase my skill, but I'll be blogging about it regularly and trying to get the word out.
As far as I can see, the only other writing challenges in May are an alternate NaNoWriMo and National Crime Writing Month (NaCriWriMo?), neither of which should conflict with NaShoStoMo since alternate 'NaNoWriMo's can be done any month, and Crime writers might not be interested in short stories anyways.
So wish me luck in May! I've got a few ideas already, plus a 'writing kit' from Writer's Digest I was given months ago to give me inspiration. I don't plan on posting my short stories online, since I'll want to get them entered in contests or published, but I will let you know how I'm doing, and ask for encouragement. I'll see you in May!
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