NaNoWriMo

NaNoWriMo: National Novel Writing Month. As I write this, it’s November and I am participating in NaNoWriMo. This means that I have to write a novel in one month. That may seem like too much of a task over school and other time consuming activities, but it is very doable. And I am not the only one doing it; just last year there were 119301 adult participants. 18.2 percent of which won (that’s 21683 people!) Everybody who participated tried to write 50000 words, all in the 30 day month of November. Together, all those people wrote a total of 1.6 billion words (that’s enough to go around the moon many times.) I quite enjoy it, and I think that many other people would too.


But that is just the adults. This year there are over 1000 classrooms participating in NaNoWriMo’s Young Writers Program. The Y.W.P. is for children who have very little likely hood of reaching 50000 words. It lets them choose their word count goal, according to grade. This is what I am doing, not the full NaNoWriMo, and I need to reach 15000 words by November 30th. With Y.W.P. children get a chance to express their imagination in a very productive way. Both Y.W.P. and NaNoWriMo are great ways to test your imagination and endurance. I think that the next time November comes around you should try one of these word marathons.

On October 26th, I listened the best speech I have ever heard. In my humble opinion, Barack Obama is rivalled by Eva Olsson when it comes to speeches. She is a Holocaust survivor and her message is one that most people turn away from, one that they don’t want to hear. She went through something we can barely begin to imagine, and for that I think we should at the very least listen to what Eva has to say. Her message is not just one thing it’s many messages, such as bullying, hate, and even driving under the influence, all in one story.


Within her story there are many messages: Hate, something we say or feel without even realizing it, but it is hate, which led people to do such bad things. She said it is okay to dislike something but not to hate. Family, Eva’s biggest memory is of seeing her mother taken away from her and never being able to say “I love you,” to her again. Eva told us to say that to our parents because in this world you never know how long you might have to say it to them. Bullies and bystanders, if you hurt you are a bully, and if you watch this you are a bystander. Being a bystander is just as bad as bullying. Drunk driving, just so you know, DRUNK DRIVING IS BAD! Never give up, Eva couldn’t live a day at a time because it was too much, instead she lived a minute at time. In doing this, she never gave up. All of the messages Eva told us about, need to be remembered for generations to come.