Have you heard of NaNoWriMo? It seems teen authors may or have in the past taken part in this national writing campaign. Do you know what it is? NaNoWriMo is short for “National Novel Writing Month,” which, if I remember correctly was started by a small group of writers needing a way to write. NaNoWriMo is pretty simple: write a 50,000 word novel about anything and then you can say you wrote a novel. The point is just to write, write, write and about quantity and not quality. Although, that’s not to say quality work isn’t written. Heck, a few NaNoWriMo projects have been published as books.
Why should you care? The short answer: teens. How often have you seen an article about a teen writing group? Seen a program write up on hosting a writing group? Writing workshop? I’ve seen quite a bit from ideas in professional works to an article in Voya. Teens write. I used to be a prolific writer as a teen to help sort through my anxieties and problems. NaNoWriMo now provides a division for younger writers such as teens and some schools have even hosted their own NaNoWriMos and it is simple if you just tell writers to scramble the word and do a word count.
Programming Connections: Does your library have a writing group? See if teens can become involved. Offer writing workshops this month, author visits, or host a writing group once a week this month.
You get the idea. :)
1 comment:
Great idea. Reading and Writing Pssa scores are down in most schools. I may start a writing club but I'm lucky I have a book club right now. It would be fun to have different contests like one month is a short story and pick a theme or subject.
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