The Accidental WriMo

For those who aren't already familiar with the genius that is NaNoWriMo, a "WriMo" is a person participating in National Novel Writing Month. And although she's not waiting until November to do it as part of the organized event, Dahlia Lithwick is about to become a WriMo.

Dahlia, the Supreme Court reporter for Slate magazine, is planning to write a chick lit novel in a month. Go check out the article, then come back.

It's cool, I'll wait.

I have mixed feelings about this. After all, I am a huge fan of NaNoWriMo and its underlying philosophies (the end of the "some day I'll write a novel" writer, etc.) and I plan to participate again this year, and I'll be blogging about NaNo on a pretty regular basis starting in October.

But.

Part of me also wants to be snarky about this. Jennifer Weiner already tweeted:

Dahlia Lithwick wants to write a chick-lit book in a month. Maybe I'll cover the Supreme Court while my kid naps.

The fact that I'm a lawyer who, in theory, could cover the Supreme Court does not help my attitude on this point. (Although with Souter retired, what's the point? *sob*)

Here's the problem: although Dahlia says it's not about the chick lit genre wars...

I am fully aware of the raging battles between those who take pink books seriously and those who do not. This project seeks to sidestep that entire literary debate by being fun for its own sake.

...it will be. She can't sidestep it. The vast majority of people who read about her efforts will probably not think, "wow, she loves the genre, it makes her happy, so she's going to just go for it and see what she can write in the little time she has available, and we should all think about similar ways to go for the gusto in our own lives." Nope. They'll think, "chick lit is so freakin' easy it can be done in 3 weeks, I always knew that whole category was nothing but garbage ever since I saw the movie Bridget Jones's Diary 2."

Sigh.

Okay, I've decided to be optimistic about this. Maybe Dahlia will join my campaign to "take back" chick lit. After all, she says that "funny women writers are, I believe, the book world's greatest gift to 21^st-century women" (damn straight!), and I appreciate her choices as to which plot traditions she hopes to embrace, and which she hopes to avoid or subvert.

And, it's nice to know that I'm not the only one who has obscure legal texts next to mommy lit on her bookshelves...

You can follow along with Ms. Lithwick's efforts on her Saving Face Facebook page, and if you're new to my blog, you can click here to read my previous chick-lit genre rants.

Belated edit: Let me make clear that I don't think writing chick lit in a month is easy. Let me make clear that I don't think DAHLIA thinks it's easy. I simply fear that the publicity of the attempt will accidentally encourage people who don't get the genre to dump on it more. My actual feelings on the project are summed up by my hypothetical quote above: "wow, she loves the genre, it makes her happy, so she's going to just go for it and see what she can write in the little time she has available, and we should all think about similar ways to go for the gusto in our own lives."

And we shouldn't blame Dahlia for doing something cool, just because other people might misinterpret her efforts. Although I reserve the right to be a jealous harridan if she knocks it out of the park on her first try. Just sayin'.

Also, my own novel, as many of you know, started out as a NaNoWriMo project, which means I did the EXACT SAME THING by trying to write a chick lit book in a month. I failed on the time frame, but got it done eventually.