SFU Surrey students get writing

"One day, I'd like to write a
novel."

How many times have people said this to
themselves, only for them to lay aside their plans, and forget about them?
There is a growing number of students at SFU Surrey who are casting aside their
'one day' novel-writing intentions, and doing something about it by
participating in the National Novel Writing Month, more commonly referred to as
NaNoWriMo. In short, NaNoWriMo is an international literary marathon that
challenges people to write 50,000 words of fiction within the month of November
– more fiction than most people write in their entire lives. NaNoWriMo allows
its participants to get their hands dirty, have fun, and most importantly, make
mistakes.

As many participants will say, the key to
cranking out all those words is to suppress their 'Inner Editor'; the
grammarian, the perfectionist, the nagging part of ourselves that refuses to
allow us to do anything short of perfection, and just write pages upon endless
pages of prose. The challenge also provides forums for participants to meet
other nearby participants as well as providing a place for them to discuss the
more delicate aspects of their genre, complain about their writing woes to
sympathetic ears, or to celebrate their triumphant victories for the world to hear.

Tanya Lisle, a fifth year SIAT student, is
gearing up for her third year of doing NaNoWriMo. "Last year, my favourite
part of Nano was the meetups. The year before it was just getting it done and
reading the forums." Tanya uses schoolwork and her novel writing exploits as
ways to procrastinate working on the other. Her real secret? "I forfeit
sleep mostly. Plus, I find that the lectures start getting a little repetitive
in the latter half of the year during projects, so I tend to get some done in
class."

First year students are in on the action as
well. "I write late at night and go a little short on sleep in
November. It helped that there isn't much going on in November in high
school. University looks like it'll be different, and a challenge"
says Holly Becker, a first year student currently in TechOne. She enjoys the
creative license it gives her and the excuse to write. 2007 will be her 4th
time participating.

Last year, the contest saw nearly 80,000
participants from all parts of the world. The combined work of those who
tracked their progress on the NaNoWriMo site tallied up a staggering 982
million words. Of the registered participants, almost 13,000 of them managed to
pass the 50,000 word mark, with a few of them doing so within a week.