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It's approaching midnight on Halloween night, and more than two dozen writers are opening their laptops in the back room of the Bloomington IHOP.
Nov. 1 marks the start of National Novel Writing Month, NaNoWriMo for short. More than 600 writers in Minnesota are racing to write a novel by the end of the month.
"It's a marathon for writers. Fifty thousand words, one month to do it, write something new and creative, the world needs your story," said Steve Semler, who's writing superhero science fiction.
"I divert my leisure activities so this becomes my only real hobby for the month of November," said Simler, who's written six novels and self-published them on Amazon. He and some other writers plan for this month with thorough outlines. Others are "pantsers," flying by the seat of their pants, trusting that by writing that much every day, something great will come.
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"I think the deadline has always been one of the key points of NaNoWriMo," said Ellie Byler, in her sixth year. "The only times I ever finish pieces of writing is with deadlines. And the NaNoWriMo one is pretty intense."
Fifty thousand words is fairly short for a novel, although not unheard-of — "The Great Gatsby" is 47,000. But it's a lot to write in 30 days. You have to write roughly 7 double-spaced pages a day to hit that goal. If you miss a day or two, you can fall behind fast.
"You really can't take a day off because as soon as you take a day off, you stop," said Chloe Maier, a University of Minnesota student who first did NaNoWriMo at age 13. "You need to do it every day or you lose momentum, and if you lose momentum you start second-guessing yourself."
People get creative. Lunch breaks. Late nights. Word sprints with other writers, where you see how many words you can type before the buzzer. Byler writes on a Bluetooth keyboard riding the bus.
"One time there was a snowstorm," said Byler. "The bus would be stuck between one street and the next because of all the snow, and I'd see how many words I can write in that amount of time."
Byler is wearing her Halloween costume. She's a NaNoWriMo warrior, complete with Viking helmet, shield, and a foot-long pencil. She knows that after the initial excitement, there's a lot of hard work.
"Week two is actually notoriously tough," said Byler. She counts on the community of writers to help her through. More than 400,000 writers participated worldwide last year.
Lanayia Cribbs, who writes erotic romance, has done NaNoWriMo on and off since high school. She's wearing a full-body unicorn costume covered in gold stars.
"It definitely takes a little unicorn power to power through some of these write-ins on a weeknight," said Cribbs. Cribbs is counting on this November to develop good writing habits.
"Sometimes when you don't do it, you forget how good it feels to get those words out," Cribbs said. "When you go back and you reread them and you see how awesome they are and how awesome these characters are, it's a vacation that doesn't cost anything to take.
The goal of NaNoWriMo is word count. If you reach 50,000, you win! You've got serious bragging rights. Then what?
Some go back and revise their work. Cribbs self-publishes. For others, the sheer act of writing is their reward, and it doesn't happen much the rest of the year. By day, Ellie Byler is a marketing data manager at Lerner Publishing.
"Usually real life gets back in the way, which is why I really relish November because it's a time that I can actually go back to being a writer again."
