National Novel Writing Month inspires two professors and their students to engage in a month-long writing marathon

It’s that infamous time of the quarter: the hazy, dizzying weeks of tackling midterms, grinding through p-sets and churning out coherent thesis statements for papers. As the quarter reaches its peak in bustling activity, a small fraction of the Stanford community is taking deep breaths before plunging straight into their writing. Those people will breathe easily only after generating 50,000-word novels.

National Novel Writing Month, known as NaNoWriMo, is a now-worldwide writing event that takes place during November. Organizers promote it as “30 days and nights of literary abandon.” Aspiring novelists register online and undertake the daunting task of writing an entire novel from scratch in one month.

“Fifty thousand words,” said creative writing lecturer Scott Hutchins. “That’s the definition of success.”

Hutchins, along with creative writing lecturer Tom Kealey, co-teach English 190T, “Special Topics in Intermediate Fiction Writing: Nanowrimo.” This quarter is the first time the course has centered on preparing students for their writing marathons in November.

One key component of preparation is the reading of several novels that are of NaNoWriMo length, including Kurt Vonnegut’s “Slaughterhouse Five,” Ernest Hemingway’s “The Sun Also Rises” and Chinua Achebe’s “Things Fall Apart.”

“We’ve analyzed what has made them work and that has been interesting,” said Aaron Peterson ’13, a student taking the course. “It shows how much you can do with writing.”

What sets the course apart from other creative writing classes at Stanford is its unique way of providing feedback early in the quarter.

“We reverse the model of typical workshops,” Hutchins said. “Usually you read a lot before writing and getting feedback. Here, we’ve been giving people a lot of feedback on their outlines before they start the novel writing.”

Early comments from fellow writers are an important part of the collaborative experience the class fosters, particularly before the novels are underway, so that students can deal with potential writing obstacles early on.

“There’s a huge difference between writing a short story and writing a novel,” said Guillermo Huerta ’09. “One thing that’s definitely tripped me up is writing in different voices. It’s been nice to get comments back so I know what to work on.”

However, for most students, the writing is an intimate process, and the prospect of revealing their rough story outlines and possible ideas can be intimidating.

“I have trouble sharing my writing with others,” said Chris Rurik ’11. “I want to be secretive about it. I want people to see the complete form, and not the process. There’s a feeling that I’m trying to create and I’m afraid when I show it to people before that idea is realized, they’ll look at it differently.”

It is this aspect of collaboration that has actually become one of this class’s greatest strengths.

“There’s a lot of camaraderie in our group and a lot of support, which is essential since we’re doing something this big,” Peterson said.

This goes for all participants. “It’s a fellowship,” Kealey said. “Other people hold me accountable. Just the fact we’re doing it collaboratively makes it doable. It’s like going to the gym–it’s much more successful if you go with other people instead of just yourself.”

According to Kealey, the various novels in the class cover a wide range of genres, including fantasy, sci-fi, mystery, “realistic fiction” and magical realism.

“Mine takes place in a medieval world,” said Grant Mathews ’13. “I have some guiding ideas, but nothing too specific. It’s more focused on character development and I’ve been trying to keep the magic off-stage.”

All of the preparation will culminate in daily writing sprints, which are characteristic of NaNoWriMo writing. Contrary to the common perception that all fast writing is bad writing, there is a general consensus in the class that there is value in rapid, word limit-based writing.

“I want to spend time just writing, to spend time turning off my internal editor,” Kealey said. “I want to get my characters, the tension out onto the page and work on crafting characters and the story arc.”

With 50,000 words as the finish line, participants will have to write close to 1,700 words per day–“1,667 words, to be exact,” said Mathews, a NaNoWriMo veteran. “I’ve previously done it two whole times. I tried to do it during my first year at Stanford but that turned out to be an epic failure. Too many credits, too little time.”

The enormous time commitment to NaNoWriMo may be the primary reason why Stanford students and faculty rarely attempt the challenge.

“How many faculty are participating in NaNoWriMo? So far, only two,” Kealey said.

There is no wiggle room for procrastination.

“A major challenge is not thinking I can just put it off a day and trying to make it up the next day,” Peterson said. “It takes a lot of willpower to get that many words out a day.”

Yet the reward at the end of November is well worth the many hours of frantic, caffeine-induced writing for participants.

“I’ve always wanted to write a novel,” Rurik said. “Now I’ll know what it’ll be like to finish a story.”