National Write Whatever the Hell You Want Month!

In my February column at ERWA, "Will You Take the NWWTHYWM Challenge?" I invited everyone to participate in an informal month-long indulgence to... write whatever the hell you want for a whole month.

Fellow Writers, that’s one whole month when you can write whatever the hell you want without feeling you have to meet some external standard of worth or profitability. Your ending doesn’t have to be happy or edgy or ambivalent--it can be as many of these things as you can manage. The protagonist doesn’t have to be attractive or likeable or complex or sexy. There can be as much or as little sex as you like and the length can be “too” long or short. The taboos—and isn’t it interesting that supposedly transgressive erotic expression has more publishers’ rules than any other genre?--need not apply because publication and pleasing someone else is not the goal here.

Partially inspired by November's National Novel Writing Month, NWWTHYW Month is somewhat different in that there are no rules or goals for output, unless you set them yourself because... the whole point is to do whatever you want! I had a lot of people say they were interested in trying a month of expectation-free creativity, so we're on for March!

With the help of ERWA blog mistress, Lisabet Sarai, we've set up a NWWTHYWM page where anyone who feels like it can weigh in about the ups and downs and ins and outs of writing whatever the hell they want. Please join us and have some fun!