Blog #21 NaNoWriMo
November 7, 2014
NaNoWriMo is the acronym for National Novel Writing Month. My kids took informational kick-off class this week sponsored by our wonderful librarians, both whom are very excited about kids writing. One is the children's librarian, who is encouraging beyond measure, adors helping kids, and offered to help with their works of art anytime. The other is a hip, in-the-know teen librarian that is enthused by all young adult literature, comic strips, movies, animation films and all things teen. During this one hour, they played writer games to encourage vocabulary skills to go beyond the basics, they taught them more about Google Docs, Dropbox and the NaNoWriMo website that scrambles your work to give you word counts, but ensures others can not steal your work. The kids were amazed by this process. The NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program challenges young authors to create a story, write a 50,000 word novel in a month. Wow. That is a big number. That is 1,667 words per day.
My son walked out to the car exhilarated and ready to start the moment he walked in the door. He did, too. We walked in the house, and he signed up. It is blissful to watch my son, who hated all things school, especially reading, excited to write a novel. My lesson of the day: always find passionate people to introduce new subjects or ideas to my kids. Passionate people inspire. Inspired people do amazing things.
