Day 3 : Write a 100 word novel in a week!

Continuing the 'Write a 100 word novel in a week' competition at work.

Day 3.

Funt is running a 'Write a 100 word novel in a week' competition. Imagine if everyone in Republic wrote a novel - perhaps we'd end being famous for having more unpublished novelists in one place than anywhere else. So if you've always harboured a secret desire to get in the Guinness Book of Records, open up word and get typing. It's only a 100 words.

If you're worrying whether 100 words even count as a novel, well, author Umberto Eco considers El Dinosaurio ('The Dinosaur') a novel, and it's only got a rather pitiful word count of seven:

Cuando despertó, el dinosaurio todavía estaba allí.
("When he awoke, the dinosaur was still there.")

If that counts, we think we're safe with a hundred. And with a decent editor, who knows; maybe they can cut it back to a publishable length.

Those of you struggling with writers block should take heart from Hu Wenliang from China, who wrote nothing but five lines of punctuation and is waiting to hear whether it is the shortest novel ever. So if you've drawn a creative blank, try resting your forehead on your keyboard and you might come up with something on a par with Hu Wenliang. Just don't expect to be swanning off to Ibiza* on us: we'll be using Microsoft Word to check word counts, and it might object.


Funt - not waving, crowd surfing

*a holiday in Ibiza is a provisional prize and is subject to change. We're sure Jane will be fine with it, but, well, we haven't asked her yet, and we might have to fall back on something we can buy from the Red Shop for a fiver. But how much is a place in the Guinness Book Of Records worth? You can't buy that sort of publicity. Personally, I think you should save some of your holiday allocation. Maybe not the full 25 days, but a long weekend is probably a dead cert.

**Who knew: Roy Castle, famous for presenting the 'Record Breakers', used to have a wicker basket off camera into which he would dive and take refuge while presenting the program because he suffered from agoraphobia, and they filmed the program in one of the BBC's larger studios.

Write a 100 word novel in a week!

Launched a competition at work today: Write a 100 word novel in a week. I was going to whip a frenzy for a group NaNoWriMo effort, but the consensus was that turnout might be a bit low, so:

In November there is a competition to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. But that's November.

What we would like you to do now is write a 100 word novel in a week. Entries in by Friday 12th October.

So dig out your hundred favouritest words, and bash them out.

There's a prize, obviously, and while we can't tell you what it is, think a weeks holiday in Ibiza, then scale back a bit (massively).

Start writing. 100 words - it's less than this email (101 words)!


Funt - we love you like your mother, and your mother too!


small print (that doesn't count in the word count of the email above because I've only just thought to mention it):
We might stick the novels up on a website (if we get more than none), so sending your plot synopsis for a TV series you plan to sell to TV and retire on might not be the cleverest thing in the world. But then again, maybe you're cool with that :)

Tomorrow: my first inspirational email to keep things moving.