Founded: 1999 in Oakland, Calif.
Participants in 1999: 140
Number who finished in 1999: 29
Participants in 2006: 79,813
Number who finished in 2006: 12,948
Words officially logged in 2006: 982,564,701

Official Site, Wikipedia Entry

AS OF 4 P.M. TODAY, amateur novelist and senior Linda Song had written a 50,000-word novel, tentatively titled "Strands," for the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) program.

Described as a "fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing," the purpose of NaNoWriMo is to encourage budding writers to start from scratch and complete a 50,000-word story during November, National Novel Writing Month.

“I think it’s just a fun challenge if you like writing and you’ve always had an idea that you’ve wanted to write down,” said Song. “This was just a really good time to motivate yourself because you’ve got all these other people who are doing it with you and you feel the excitement.”

For thousands of participants all over the world the clock started ticking at midnight on Oct. 31, and the deadline arrives at 11:59:59 tonight.

Winners — those who successfully write 50K words by the deadline and are verified as doing so — get the priceless satisfaction that comes with completion.

“It’s not a contest,” said Song. “You just do it, get 50,000 words, and then you get a Web sticker which you can put on your Web site or something.”

Last year 79,813 would-be novelists signed up, and 12,948 actually completed the task.

Song became interested in NaNoWriMo after hearing about it from a few of her friends who had participated in 2006. She began her journey of producing the Great Frantic Novel on Nov. 1.

“Well, I have two friends who are doing NaNoWriMo — they’re both online friends," she said. "One of my friends, she’s from LiveJournal, she did it last year and she was going to try it again this year.

"My other friend, she’s from my RPG [role-playing game], and she’s also done NaNoWriMo before and she finished it last year and she was talking about how she was preparing for it. She’s pretty serious about writing a novel and pursuing it. So I got interested in it and said, 'What the heck?' I signed up Nov. 1 in the evening, one day behind, but that doesn’t really matter.”

The program stresses quantity and not quality, and with such a motto it is inevitable that some of the writing produced may be awful. The point, however, is not to constantly edit and tweak but rather to let the ideas and lengthy prose flow. And perhaps, eventually, a Pulitzer Prize-worthy manuscript will emerge.

"I think that it’s a great idea, and I think it’s fun and something good might come out of it, and someone might find their voice and that writing appeals to them and works for them," commented English teacher Steve Rayburn. "On the other hand there’s a lot of schlock out there, and this might encourage more schlock, but that’s OK if they [NaNoWriMo] don’t give awards for it. The good might come out of it. I mean not everyone’s a novelist, but I could never fault anyone for trying."

Linda Song, shown during a recent visit to the University of Chicago, completed her first novel today. Gargoyle photo by Jie Han

Song came up with the idea for her novel sophomore year while her English class was reading "Frankenstein."

“I hadn’t really planned it out or anything, but it was inspired by Mary Shelley's 'Frankenstein,' and so it’s like a modern-day kind of 'Frankenstein' from a teenager’s point of view,” said Song. “I don’t really think I could write from an adult’s point of view quite yet.”

For many, writing a novel is an arduous and painful experience, complete with writer's block and dead-end plots. And although Song may be an amateur novelist, she is quite proficient at handling writer's block.

“I most definitely have encountered writer's block, but the cure is to just write down something random which suddenly pops up into your mind,” said Song. “That helps a lot.”

NaNoWriMo also anticipated such obstacles, and the organization created several solutions to them.

“It’s really cool because they [NaNoWriMo] get a whole bunch of authors to participate and they give you pep talks throughout the month and so they send you e-mails which are like, ‘Yeah, you can do this!’” exclaimed Song.

And while the majority of each person's novel is created spontaneously by the author, there are a few preplanned strategies that are suggested by NanoWriMo.

"The strategy is supposed to be that you write 1,666 words per day in order to finish on time," said Song. "I started off with more than that per day but then I stopped for a while and just trailed off for a little bit, so my word count probably went up by less than 1,000 a day for most of this month. And then I started realizing that the end of the month was coming, so this last week I’ve been writing about 5,000 words a day to catch up, and I’ve finally caught up.”

Song also took advantage of a few more unorthodox strategies in order to motivate herself to completion.

"One of the strategies is to tell everyone that you’re going to do it," she said. "Because then you’re like, ‘I told everyone that I was going to do it, so now I have to do it.’ So that’s what I’ve been trying to do.”

After toiling away for 30 days, Song wrote 50,107 words in 10-point font to fill up nearly 75 pages on Microsoft Word. She began her weekend today by proudly announcing, "I did it, and I didn’t just write 50,000 words, I also finished my novel!"

Excerpt from Linda Song's novel

So here I am, sitting in the basement now instead of moping around in my room. Big guy? Well, he’s sleeping. Got him a different set of clothes and threw him in the bathroom. He smelled like a barn: all piss, sweat, and dirt. Those old sweaters he had been wearing … I’m going to burn them. Well, most of them. He won’t let go of the one that he was actually wearing right. If I could convince him to just let it go for me to wash, at least give me that.

He’s scary pale and his hair is a ragged blond mop, you know?

… I think his face is the only part of his body that isn’t covered in razor-thin scars. It’s creepy. These scars, they don’t looks like random scratches — far from it actually. These are precise lines and as he ate, I could begin to make out how anatomically placed these lines are.

No, he’s not naked and no I wasn’t peeping at him. What sort of perv do you take me for?

Is he some sort of really psycho cutter? Really psycho and nerdy cutter? Well, he hasn’t taken to fondling the knives around the house so I’m cutting that idea out. No pun intended, really.

He’s jumpy. Honestly, there was one time today where I lunged to grab something from falling and he freaked out. He stumbled back into the wall with the most horrified look on his face and next thing I knew it, he lunged towards me. I was the one getting quite familiar with the wall this time.

There are a few choice words from me before I wriggle said caught object however I can. I couldn’t see his expression but he let me go and kinda gave me this awkward pat. I think it was supposed to be an apology.

Man screw it, I’m in over my head. I don’t even know why I’m going through with this. For all I know he could be anything from a hobo off the street to some deranged serial killer. What was I thinking?

— Oh yeah, I wasn’t.

From the novel "Strands" by Linda Song