In Case You Weren't Busy Enough

UPDATED: Nov. 1, 2013 at 10:56 a.m.

So what if you’ve been procrastinating on doing laundry for two weeks now? You still know you could do anything if you just put your mind to it—say, even writing a novel. You’ve got great plots floating around in your head, characters begging to be set free, and you’d like nothing more than to see your name on the cover of a full-length book. But how do you find the time? Amidst midterms, papers, and p-sets, it’s hard to imagine sitting down and writing anything without a deadline, let alone an entire novel. You’d never work up the motivation. Well, that’s what NaNoWriMo is for.

National Novel Writing Month—affectionately dubbed “NaNoWriMo”—was started in the San Francisco Bay area by Chris Baty in 1999. Last year, 341,375 writing enthusiasts from all over the world came together to take on the challenge of writing a 50,000 word novel in the thirty days of November. Yes, an entire novel in just one month.

I myself will be participating in NaNo for the sixth year in a row and couldn’t be more excited to write my latest novel on Harvard’s campus. If you’re interested in giving it a shot, know that Harvard has an entire community of writers gearing up for the hectic month together. The Harvard College Writers’ Workshop will host a number of events that they hope undergraduate WriMos (the preferred title) will take advantage of, starting with a kick-off party today, the first day of NaNo. HCWW also holds weekly writing events where writers can gather to eat snacks, share ideas, and just enjoy writing. On Friday, November 8, they’ll be hosting a semesterly event called In the Workshop of the Night, where writers come together to write for as long as they can, all night long. This isn’t just for NaNoWriMo—all writers and all projects are welcome—but it’s a chance to get some NaNo noveling done while enjoying the company of fellow writers.

Harvard students can also look off-campus and take advantage of Boston’s massive NaNoWriMo network, which hosts a number of regional write-ins all over the city, including many in the nearby Cambridge Public Library. These opportunities to share the trials and tribulations with a community, in my experience, have been one of the best things about NaNo.

“Obviously we’re all very pressed for time, as students. But honestly, we’ll probably always be pressed for time,” says Catherine C. Zuo ‘16, the Events Chair of HCWW and an eight-time NaNo participant. “NaNo is an amazing opportunity with so much creative energy flying around. If you have a novel in you at all, this is the time that you should let it out.”

So why not set your inhibitions and your Ec10 p-set aside—both are better off saved for later, anyway—and write the novel you’ve always been meaning to write? If you silence your inner editor, just allow the words to flow, and fight through the writers’ block, the 50,000-word finish line will be here before you know it. With a community of Harvard writers around you for support, there is no better time to give NaNoWriMo a shot.