Community
The official forums provide a place for advice, information, criticism, support and an opportunity for "collective procrastination." The forums are available from the beginning of October, when signups for the year begin, until late September, when they are archived and the database is wiped in preparation for the next year.
Most regions have one or more Municipal Liaisons (ML) assigned to them, who are volunteers that help with organizing local events. MLs are encouraged to coordinate at least two kinds of meet-ups; a kickoff party, and a "Thank God It's Over" party to celebrate successes and share novels. Kickoff parties are often held the weekend before November to give local writers a chance to meet and get geared up, although some are held on Halloween night past midnight so writers start writing in a community setting. Other events may be scheduled, including weekend meet-ups or overnight write-ins.
Starting in more recent years, NaNoWriMo now hosts a fundraising Write-a-thon event every November called 'The Night of Writing Dangerously', held in San Francisco. The first 250 participants to raise at least $250 receive reservations at this event. It has been described as a "mid-November extravaganza of food, drink, and lots and lots of noveling". From 5 pm to 11 pm, hundreds of writers are gathered together in the Julia Morgan Ballroom to eat, chat, exchange excerpts, enter raffle contests, listen to speeches, meet the staff, but most of all, to write. Every hour or so, a 10–20 minute 'word war' is held in which the entire room falls almost completely silent with concentration, save for the sound of keystrokes. Whoever writes the most words in the allotted time frame is temporarily awarded the much-coveted flower pot hat. If a guest reaches the goal of 50,000 words while at the event, they are allowed to ring a bell kept at the stage, and receive much cheering. There are lots of sponsors for this event, many of which are the donors of most of the raffle prizes. In 2011, this fundraiser raised over $50,000.
Read more about this topic: National Novel Writing Month
Famous quotes containing the word community:
“The poorest children in a community now find the beneficent kindergarten open to them from the age of two-and-a-half to six years. Too young heretofore to be eligible to any public school, they have acquired in their babyhood the vicious tendencies of their own depraved neighborhoods; and to their environment at that tender age had been due the loss of decency and self-respect that no after example of education has been able to restore to them.”
—Virginia Thrall Smith (1836–1903)
“Education is for improving the lives of others and for leaving your community and world better than you found it.”
—Marian Wright Edelman (20th century)
“Every community is an association of some kind and every community is established with a view to some good; for everyone always acts in order to obtain that which they think good. But, if all communities aim at some good, the state or political community, which is the highest of all, and which embraces all the rest, aims at good in a greater degree than any other, and at the highest good.”
—Aristotle (384–323 B.C.)