Qatar National Library's creative writing group.
Doha: Thousands of novelists inhabit the shelves of Qatar National Library (QNL), but a few more have been typing away each week in a bid to write a 50,000-word book in just one month.
The authors are all members of the Library’s creative writing group — a group of individuals who have taken on the challenge of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) for the fourth year running. The goal is simple yet challenging — to write 50,000 words in just 30 days, the length of an average novel, averaging out to around 1,700 words per day.
The rules of the challenge are fairly loose, with the novel not necessarily having to be finished and the 50,000 words may be made up of planning and character development. The main aim is to encourage people to learn to love creative writing and to write every day.
Lynne Fraser, Senior Writing Specialist at QNL, said the event was a great chance for new writers to build up their confidence and an opportunity for seasoned authors to focus and get support and input from others.
She said: “It’s a chance to write without editing and a chance to write without being concerned about spelling, language skills or grammar. There are no winners and you’re not competing against anyone else; everyone wins and even if they don’t hit their daily target, the aim is just to write for pleasure.
“What is so good is that you have the support of your peers. You can bounce ideas off them, ask for suggestions and just receive moral support.”
Last year, nine people took part in the challenge. Among them was Qatari national Reem Al Saad, who was attempting creative writing for the first time.
Reem said, “I want to publish a book. I just have that urge and I’ve had it since I was a child, so this was helping to fulfill a life’s dream for me, plus I believe I have the talent and this group has kept me focused.
So far I’m on about 27,000 words, but I’m going to continue writing.”
Reem said that she is still in the invention and planning stage of her novel — set in a dystopian world of science fiction — so is using her writing to develop the plot and characters.
Greig Parker, a seasoned participant, achieved 74,000 words in this year’s NaNoWriMo and is currently searching for a publisher for his second novel. He found that mapping the novel out beforehand worked best for him and enjoyed the excitement of getting the words down on paper.
“I go for historical novels which tend to have a contemporary timeline that links to the past. One idea I had came from a memory I had as a kid in which I thought I had witnessed a murder as a five-year-old. I hadn’t, but the idea was ‘what if I had?’. I started writing when I first came to Qatar. I was writing an archaeology book, but I never finished it as I fell in love with creative writing. In 2019 there was this idea for NaNoWriMo and I was persuaded to give it a try.”
