Writing a 50,000-word novel in a month may seem impossible, but Chris Baty, the founder of National Novel Writing Month, told more than 100 writers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Saturday “you all have dozens of books in you” — books he challenged them to write during November.
Each writer, after pledging to write 50,000 words, can create a user profile on the NaNoWriMo website which connects them with other participants and tracks their progress. At the end of the month, participants upload the novels to the website and word totals are tallied.
Those who complete 50,000 words — usually about 18 percent of participants — get a winner’s certificate and their novel is posted on the winners’ page, Baty said.
Baty said to finish the task — which amounts to approximately 175 pages — participants must write for about two hours a night, five nights a week, or 1,667 words per day.
Baty said he dreamt up the idea in 1999 in San Francisco — during a time he called the “height of the Dot.com boom,” when nothing was considered a bad idea as long as it had a website attached to it.
The freelance writer said he dared himself and friends to each write a 50,000-word novel in a month, which is about the length of The Catcher and the Rye.
“What had started as an over-caffeinated dare had become one of the greatest things I had ever done,” Baty said.
According to the NaNoWriMo website, organizers expect 75,000 participants this year. Over the years, 10 manuscripts written as part of the event have been sold to major publishers.
The contest became nonprofit Sept. 29 this year, according the NaNoWriMo website. Fifty percent of the profits from donations and merchandise sales going toward building libraries for children in Southeast Asia.
Baty said he plans to launch the first ever Script Frenzy — a screen-play-in-a-month challenge in June 2007.
Randy Pinion, College of Communication sophomore, said he has twice failed to complete the challenge, but is participating again this year.
“I’ve always been a writer and have always wanted to write a novel, but never really had the motivation to do it,” he said, adding he currently has four plot ideas for this year’s novel.
Ruth Dhanaraj, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology student who orchestrated Baty’s appearance at the school, was “thrilled” the audience filled the room. As for her own novel writing, she signed up for, but did not finish, NaNoWriMo last year.
“But this year will be different,” she said.