Open Source Life: NaNoWriMo, open sourced
In 1999, Chris Baty and about 20 others experimented with writing an entire novel in the month of November. The experiment was a success, not in terms of number of novels published, but in the positive experience of those who participated. Chris stuck with it and has restarted his experiment each year since, and each year the number of participants has grown. Many people no longer think of November as just another month. It is now the official National Novel Writing Month, often abbreviated to NaNoWriMo.
NaNoWriMo, now an international “contest,” presents this challenge to anyone willing to accept: Will you put aside your concerns and write a 50,000 word novel in 30 days? There are no entry fees, and the only prize is the satisfaction of finishing the challenge. The rules are simple. No starting before 12:00:00am November 1, 2007, and the contest ends at 11:59:59pm on November 30, 2007. Write an average of 1666.7 words a day. Work on the honor system. Embrace quantity over quality. Commit the sin of word gluttony.
For this year’s NaNoWriMo, I’ve decided to break the “official” rules and try an experiment: open sourced novel writing. I’ve often wondered if doing something like this is even possible. Maybe it is, maybe it’s not. Maybe I’ll be the only one who contributes to the project, maybe I won’t. But no matter what, it’ll be fun.
All content for this novel will be added to an installation of Media Wiki that I set up for just this purpose. The link to nanowiki is here:
http://jeremyosborne.com/nanowiki
All work contributed, which obviously includes my own, will be under the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License. The guidelines for the nanowiki experiment are available here.
I invite anyone who likes to write to come and contribute to this experiment. There is no right or wrong thing to contribute, as there isn’t a right or wrong conclusion to this experiment. All contributors will be publicly attributed before, during, and after the experiment.
Good luck to all of those participating in this contest in whatever form you choose to do so. If you have an official NaNoWriMo account and want some cheering on from me, buddy up with me here.
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2 Responses to “Open Source Life: NaNoWriMo, open sourced”
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Hi Jeremy, I found you blog rather radnomly and I’m glad I did - there’s an interesting mix of posts here.
I hope this open source novel works out. Too busy to contribute for the next two weeks, but I’ll try to come back later in the month, though I’m not sure my writing style would fit, from the opening para at least. Good luck. Debra
Thanks Debra. Maybe the concussion I got on Wednesday has had me appreciate people more, or maybe I have forgotten the blogging rule of, “Don’t comment on thy own blog,” but whatever. I love the attention. Peaked at your blog already, nice layout!