wants to see which of our readers can write the best start to a novel — in only 60 seconds. You can flex your creative muscles in NaNoWriMi: National Novel Writing Minute just by posting a comment to this entry. The rules are these:

1) You can’t start with any ideas in your head. Open a comment, hit a timer, and then write a title, a byline, and as much text as you can.
2) When the timer ends, you can finish your thought, but for Pete’s sake, be quick about it.
3) You’re not trying to write a complete novel. You’re just trying to see how far you can get in 60 seconds. So you don’t need a middle or an ending. We’re not looking for length either.
4) Submissions must be in by 11:59 pm Pacific on November 30. (Okay, you can have another minute.) You can submit any number of novels, as long as none of them takes you longer than a minute to write.
5) This is totally on the honor system. Sure, you could dust off that story you wrote in Freshman English, copy and paste in the first few sentences, and impress us with your creativity. But we’re sure you’re not like that. Besides, it’ll probably take you longer to find it than it will to write a new one.

Here’s how this came about. Last year, with no likelihood of having time in November to write a NaNoWriMo novel, I figured I at least had the time to start one. With a timer next to my desk, I wrote as much of a novel as I could in one minute. This was “Novel Zero”:

Last Moon at Aggathor
by Mike Selinker
Today I am a man, thought Redclaw. I can give up enough of myself to make the change, day or night. The greater acommplishemnt is retaining enough of myself to change back.

Yes, that’s terrible, and yes, that’s exactly how I typed the word “accomplishment.” You think I’m going to waste precious seconds performing a spellcheck? I published the result on my Facebook page, and then hundreds of 60-second novels sprung from my creative friends’ fingers. People talked about how it was good practice for larger writing tasks, and how it was better than coffee for waking them up in the morning. You can see some of the results on the forum for the Pathfinder Role-Playing Game.

We’re sure you can do just as well as those authors. So, got a minute to spare? Open a comment, start your time and start writing. We’ll post comments on our favorite ones later in the month.

Authors: Mike Selinker

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