Why Not NaNoWriMo in March?
National Novel Writing Month begins today, and a lot of people are already furiously cranking out text in order to finish a 50,000-word (or more) novel by the end of the day November 30. I've been encouraged to participate, but I really can't-November is much too busy a month. Thanksgiving takes considerable time and doing, especially if you have to fly-or drive, God help us-to Chicago and back. And then the Christmas season begins the day after Thanksgiving, when I traditionally write our Christmas newsletter, with decorations going up shortly after that.
Nonstarter. Perhaps this would be better: Move NaNoWriMo to March. March is the least fun and most worthless month of the year, full of long-naked trees, grim gray skies and dirty leftover snow, without a single national holiday to its name, and not much cheer of any flavor except for St. Patrick's Day, which is when the Irish officially drink enough to forget about...March. It's a good month to stay indoors and keep busy, and what better way to do that than grind out a quick novel?
At the encouragement of Jim Strickland, I took notes on a non-SF novel last summer for execution during NaNoWriMo, but couldn't free up the bandwidth during November to actually do it. Then March happened, and in the space of a week or so I got 13,000 words down on Old Catholics. It's a promising enough concept to finish, though I'm far from sure if it has any commercial potential. (It's basically an Andrew Greeley Chicago novel written about Old Catholics instead of Roman Catholics, and will be good fun if nothing else.)
Alas, my life got very busy in March and didn't let up until October. (Were she looking over my shoulder right now, Carol would doubtless make a face and object that it hasn't let up yet, and she's probably right.) Old Catholics remains unfinished, though very much a live project. So let me make this an official suggestion: Move NaNoWriMo to March. Nothing much else happens then but clinical depression, so why not get some creative work out of it?