Area writers join worldwide novel writing challenge

Fifty writers from around Micronesia signed up online at the National Novel Writing Month website, agreeing to write their novels of 50,000 words during the 30 days of November 2008. This was the tenth anniversary year for NaNoWriMo, as it is better known and, for the first time in its history, it included a region for Micronesia.

“I applied to be the Municipal Liaison for our new region,” said Jane Mack, who blogs under the name Saipanwriter, “because I’ve had so much fun with NaNoWriMo I wanted to spread the word.” Mack participated in NaNoWriMo in 2005, 2006, and 2007, winning each year, before joining the challenge this year.

Mack is not alone in her enthusiasm for NaNoWriMo. From its humble beginnings in 1999, when just 21 writers in the San Francisco Bay Area joined Chris Baty for the first NaNoWrimo, the seat-of-your-pants writing group has grown to 119,301 writers from around the world. Of these, 21,683 crossed the 2008 winner’s line. Altogether, NaNoWriMo writers around the world wrote 1,643,343,993 words of fiction in November this year!

So, how did the new region for Micronesia do in the novel-writing challenge? According to Mack, 25 area writers affiliated with the region. “I’m thrilled with the participation,” Mack said. “Last year, there were only three of us writing on Saipan, and a few more scattered around in Guam, Palau and the Marshall Islands.”

Of the 25 area writers who affiliated with the region, only 12 set their home regions to Micronesia. “The other 13 affiliated writers just forgot to set their home regions,” Mack said. “Their profiles show that they are all living on Saipan.”

Besides those who officially affiliated with the Micronesia region on the NaNoWriMo site, there were another 25 writers on Saipan, in Palau, and Guam who signed up for the novel-writing challenge. This year, Guam had five participants, Palau had two, and the Marshall Islands had one who signed up. A total of 42 writers from Saipan signed up for the challenge.

“It’s easy to sign up,” said Mack. “Much harder is actually writing. I’m proud of our new region because nine of the 12 who set Micronesia as their home region posted word counts. That means they actually wrote during the month. And among all those living in the area, we had 14 who posted word counts and four winners—three on Saipan and one in Guam.”

Those winners include Joe Race, who has self-published some of his earlier novels. Race passed the finish line on Nov. 29. Race had to overcome hurdles that included the Thanksgiving holidays and the lures of daily life. “You have to stay tuned in,” Race said, “or you find yourself being distracted, like sorting out your sock drawer, vacuuming your car, or doing early Christmas shopping.”

Race wrote 50,556 words on a Christmas novel, which were added to the Micronesia region’s total. The official regional word count is based on the word counts of only those who set their home region as Micronesia, according to Mack.

For the Micronesia region, the official total written was 191,879 words, which was better than 35 other regions. But the actual word count for all those who participated and who live in the Micronesia area is more than quarter million words, according to Mack.

“I wish we had an accurate count,” Mack said. “I wish everyone in the region had set their home region to Micronesia. But the real value is just knowing that we had a lot of people writing a lot of words in November, plunging into fictional waters and creating new stories.”

What accounted for the unusually high turnout of writers this year, according to Mack, was the participation of students. “There were students at both Marianas High School and Saipan Southern High school writing novels. Some of those students turned in impressive word counts,” Mack said.

The only Saipan student known to have validated a novel with 50,000 words was Merey Len Denora of Saipan Southern High School. A 16-year-old Guam student, writing under the name of “PsychOSch1z,” also validated a novel with 61,723 words. Other prolific students included Tiannah Diaz of SSHS, who logged 26,357 words, and DaJung. Pak of MHS, who logged 18,000 words.

Novel-writing isn’t only for older students, though, according to Mack. Fourth grade students at Kagman Elementary School participated in the Young Writers Program, a version of NaNoWriMo specifically designed for younger students. Unlike the NaNoWriMo program that sets the goal of 50,000 words to win, the YWP allows the student writers to set their own goals.

“Some of my fourth graders reached their desired word counts, for this program—5,000 words for the Special Education students, 8,000 words for my middle group, and 10,000 for my advanced group,” Kagman fourth-grade teacher Angie Wheat said. “Most had a great time doing this! They want to try again next time, but up their word counts, now that they know what is expected!”

Mack encourages teachers to bring NaNoWriMo into the classroom because the fast pace of NaNoWriMo is a great way to build writing fluency. “There’s a great freedom in writing to build word count rather than trying to produce a finished product,” Mack said.

Joe Race echoed her sentiments. “Every writer should write a novel under the gun,” Race said. “It keeps you focused and committed, and very determined. It’s a motivator to see your progress every day on the website, and also to know that so many other writers are working away at the same time.”

Mack, who also crossed the finish line, says that once you’ve tried the crash course of writing a novel, it’s hard to write any other way. Next on the writing agenda for many of these crash novelists—Script Frenzy. They’ll be writing 100-page plays and movie scripts in April. You can find out more at www.scriptfrenzy.org. [B][I](PR)[/I][/B]