NaNoWriMo vs DigiWriMo

It's that time of year again, and a lot of people have been asking me lately whether I'm doing NaNoWriMo this year. For those unfamiliar with this challenge, it stands for National Novel Writing Month, happens every November (and now in other 30-day months as well), and the challenge is to write 50,000 words of the same story in 30 days. I've never done NaNoWriMo because I haven't had an idea for a novel or one that I was ready to work on come November.

But I have done DigiWriMo, which was started a couple years ago by an ex-colleague of mine, Jesse Stommel, and his colleague, Sean Michael Morris. DigiWriMo is another writing challenge that's run in November, and it too involves writing 50,000 words in 30 days. The main difference is that with DigiWriMo, the focus is on digital writing rather than on a novel. You don't have to write 50K words of the same story; you just have to write 50K words digitally. That can include words typed into emails, blog posts, Twitter and Facebook interactions, digital slides, word processing documents, etc. I imagine it can also include words spoken into digital recorders and voice-overs for digital stories...things like that. Any words you compose and store digitally.

This year I have a couple novels I'm working on for my pseudonym, but one of them has fewer than 50K words to go, and the other is going to take more research before I'm ready to start writing. What I'm working on - as I've mentioned in my other ROW80 updates this round - are various short stories and nonfiction pieces. I'm also making small progress on one of the novels, but it doesn't feel mentally healthy to me at this time to focus solely on the novel for the sake of getting it done. I need variety. I need expansiveness.

So you want to be a writer

Somewhere once I read that some famous writer said something like, "If you want to be a writer, then write." It is that easy, but it's also not that easy. I mean, if it were really that easy, then we would all be writers already, right?

Some people think the way to become a writer is by studying how other people have done it and learning all the "rules" to "good" writing. You can spend years reading books on how to write. Others think you have to have a degree in creative writing in order to call yourself a writer.

And these people who say that a "real" writer writes because s/he is compelled to and can't not write...I kind of want to punch these people in the face (not that I would ever). 'Cause I have it in me and it really wants to come out, and also it's a terrifying thing to try to articulate and organize the mental chaos and watch it come out on paper (or in a text box) and witness how different it looks outside the head as compared to inside.

Digiwrimo Debrief

This month I took part in Digiwrimo, a 30-day writing challenge inspired by NaNoWriMo. Instead of writing a 50K-word novel in a month, participants had a goal of 50K digital words: tweets, Facebook status updates, emails, digital feedback on others' work, etc., etc.

The questions posed by the organizers, Jesse Stommel (@Jessifer) and Sean Michael Morris (@slamteacher), in today's #digiwrimo chat on Twitter included: "how do you measure success?" and "what did you learn from this experience?" This blog post is my attempt to answer those questions in a slightly more thoughtful and detailed manner than I did earlier today via 140-character tweets.

DigiWriMo!

Twelve days until DigiWriMo! It's going to send me into a writing and self-publishing spree like no other.

What is it? 

Digi the Duck

DigiWriMo is short for Digital Writing Month, and it's an online, month-long event happening in November 2012. It's modeled on NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), but instead of writing a 50,000-word novel in one month, you write and self-publish 50,000 words of digital writing in one month. That could be blog posts, online articles, Tweets, Facebook status updates, Wikis, emails--whatever, so long as it's digital. They'll also have weekly writing challenges posted on the digiwrimo.com website; weekly Friday night Twitter socials; and a free, face-to-face, write-all-night event at Marylhurst University on November 17th (registration required).

Why I'm excited about DigiWriMo

1. I like to have goals with firm deadlines
2. It'll challenge me not only to produce a significant amount of writing each day but also to publish it
3. And therefore will give me more practice at sharing things that are still in draft form
4. DigiWriMo doesn't confine me to writing about just one thing, like NaNoWriMo would; I can write lots of little things on all sorts of subjects
5. @Jessifer promised me it would help me get new Twitter followers