This year, we are taking a real run at doing Nanowrimo. (For those who haven't heard of it, it is short for National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to bang out a full length novel in 30 days. Of course, the word count target for kids depends on their age/grade level. For Mikro's level, we chose 400 words as a target, and I think he may substantially exceed it. Old fogies like me are supposed to do 55,000 words... Gulp.)
Or at least, Mikro is well on track to finish. I haven't done a thing on my own novel yet, not even an outline, because I am highly involved in helping him with his. I may content myself with that this year.
The ideas and the words are his, but I am acting as scribe a great deal of the time, and also asking questions to try to help him think through plot and character development. I am really impressed with what he's come up with so far!
Last year, I didn't even think about Nano till Thanksgiving, if I remember correctly. I tried to get him to come up with a story, without much success, because he really resisted thinking things through. He had some stock fairy tale characters in mind, but no real plot, at least, nothing that made a great deal of sense.
This year, it is a total pleasure to watch him think about motivation and conflict and come up with really interesting ideas. His story is fantasy/science fiction and involves dragons, magical creatures of his own invention, evolution and time travel.
And my kid with handwriting and fine motor issues is cheerfully drawing pictures of his characters and captioning them. Hurray!
1 comment:
I'm really glad I didn't try to do NaNoWriMo this year. November is a bad month for me. This year, I spent half the week trying to save one of my trees from Con Ed's pruning tactics. Been a loooong week!
Does it count if I wrote a nine hundred word essay about why I love trees? :o)
I love the idea of transcribing his story. I wonder if Sierra would be into doing that? Good luck to Micro! I hope I get to read his story!
Peace and Laughter!
Post a Comment