NaNoWriMo
Those of you who’ve been around the blogosphere for awhile have probably heard of NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. I personally think the word “blog” should be in there somewhere… NaBloNoWriMo? Doesn’t have the same ring to it.
Anyway, NaNoWriMo is an annual event where lots of people commit to writing/blogging a mini-novel in November (50,000 words). If you write a post every day, it’s not too hard to hit that mark. The novel can be about anything, and doesn’t have to be structured as a novel at all (read: You don’t have to start at the very beginning with “Once upon a time…”). You’re just telling a story, one post at a time.
Why bring this up on Grey Thinking? Well, because I encourage any (or all) of you to participate and write about some of your struggles. I wrote a post a few years ago on the importance of blogging about mental health, and gave the following reasons as to why I’m such an advocate for it:
- It can provide a healthy outlet for dealing with feelings surrounding your own struggles with mental illness.
- It’s comforting to know that “you’re not alone”–there are other people out there struggling with the same things as you. Often another person can articulate something that you’ve been trying to explain/identify/put your finger on for a long time.
- Community support and wisdom. There is a lot of collective experience within the mental health blogging community.
- It provides a unique inside look at otherwise poorly understood mental illnesses. How many people really understand how you view/experience the world with a disorder? How does the media affect you? What do you think about current research? What has/hasn’t been helpful for you treatment-wise? There is so much information that only someone who has struggled with mental illness can provide.
- You can challenge others… challenge them in their recovery, or to look at something from another perspective, or to break through their denial about a problem. Mental health blogs make you think and examine your own reactions.
Participating in NaNoWriMo is a fun way to increase mental health awareness. Not only that, but it’s a good personal challenge. Sign-up is free, and the official website has a lot more information on how to start. If you have any questions about getting started with a blog, I’d be happy to help you. Just shoot me an email. Additionally, if you join, let me know via comment or email and I will link to your site from GT.
I’ve done NaNoWriMo for several years now, and the the idea is to write a novel, not a blog. People do spend a lot of time blogging about their novel, of course!
What you might be confusing/combining it with is NaBloWriMo – http://nablowrimo.blogspot.com/ – National Blog Writing Month: writing a blog post every single day for a month. Actually they do it EVERY month, so you can chose to do it whichever month (or every month!) that works for you.
I don’t mean to sound bitchy or nitpicky – I totally support and agree with you that mental health awareness is something we need to support everywhere we can. I’m taking part in NaNoWriMo again this year, and my novel *is* going to be about a woman dealing with quite a few mental health issues, albeit in a humorous (I hope!) way.
Btw – I love this website. So much great information!
Cheers
Still need to finish customizing my blog over the next few days, but I’m jumping in to NaNoWriMo!!
I hadn’t been going to push my luck this year with trying to write, but the shocks of the last couple of weeks have me doing it – and I’m letting you know that I’m doing it for the sake of remaining accountable.
I’ll be posting for Nanowrimo as I work on putting my thoughts together here: http://thingsforbilly.posterous.com/
I participated in NaNoWriMo last year for the first time and wrote about my experience struggling and going through the treatment process. I did it as a challenge to myself, and also to show a different perspective. When I finished, I let my therapist be the first one to read it, and that tested my ability to trust her and to put everything out there (even if some of the story is fiction). It was also nice to write acknowledgements to a few treatment providers who have helped me a lot, so now anyone who reads it will know how I’ve appreciated them.
Now that my book is available for the world to read, it’s scary, but also exciting. It’s hard to take compliments for my writing so that has been a challenge, too. I’m continuing the story for this year’s NaNoWriMo and am a little anxious that I won’t be able to finish. I think NaNoWriMo is an awesome way to get out your feelings, give yourself a goal, have fun, whatever. Even if you don’t make it to 50,000, it’s still worth trying.
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This’ll be my first time trying NaNoWriMo. I’m not sure I’ll write about anything ED/MH-related, but as I’m a bit saturated with it, I don’t imagine I’ll escape it.
So not everyone does fiction? That is interesting… hmm. I opened a new blog (no posts until tomorrow though!) for my writing this month: I have no doubt I’ll float around quite a bit with lots of different things. Please post a link to wherever yours will be!