Last Sunday, October 11, 2009, I attended a writing workshop for writing short story for children organized by the Gunglo dagiti Mannurat nga Ilokano (Association of Ilokano Writers) – Metro Manila. It was a great time for me and for other young Ilokano writers. It was just what we need! Manong Johnny Hidalgo told us great insights on the process of writing short stories and short stories for children. The imagination of this man is really amazing! His insights also help us prepare for the Cabie PINILI sponsored by manong Honor Blanco Cabie and his family, which calls for the writing of short stories for children.

There are actually a number of Ilokano writing contests in the next few months. I tried to list them down, according to their deadlines.

Salip iti Ababa a Novela nga Iloko iti 1st Fele Javier Mann Literary Awards – deadline November 15, 2009
RFAAFIL Sarita a Fantasia – Enero 30, 2010
Cabie PINILI Sarita a Para Ubbing – Pebrero 28, 2010

Salip iti Sarita 2010 ti SABALI Awards Pebrero 28, 2010

Numan pay saan pay a pormal a naluktan, adda pay dagiti sumaganad a pasalip:
AMMAFLA (Para kadagiti Agdadamo a Mannurat) – Pebrero 28, 2010
PALANCA Awards – April 30, 2010
Sta. Rafaella Awards – Pebrero 28, 2010

I’ve been thinking about the short novel contest, which is due on November 15. It’s not very long really. It should be composed of 5-7 chapters. Each chapter is about 10-15 pages, typewritten on 8.5 X 11 inch bond paper, double space, Times New Roman point 12.

Writing a novel is definitely unlike writing a term paper or a nonfiction piece. You gotta have a big pot of ideas, a wild imagination that you could unleash, lots of time and most of all guts–guts to pursue topics that might be deemed crazy by other people!

So yeah, writing a novel is definitely hard work.

Then, just yesterday, I discovered that November is the National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)! It’s a challenge for writers–newbies and professionals alike–to get their behinds down on a seat, pound on the computer and churn out 50,000 words in a matter of one month!

Whew!

This is very timely for the Ilokano contest for a short novel. I think that in a given month, if we could just produce at least 750 – 1,500 words daily, we could complete a short novel in a month’s time. Manong Jovy Amorin, one of the more productive contemporary Ilokano novel writers in the Philippines, related to me once that some of his novels (42 chapters in all) were completed in less than 6 months! I’d say that is a good time-frame for a novel.

Perhaps, the organizers of the Salip iti Ababa a Novela nga Iloko iti 1st Fele Javier Mann Literary Awards could integrate the NaNoWriMo into the contest, we could promote the writing of novels among Ilokano writers and more writers could join this Contest. This might mean, though, that the deadline of the contest, which is November 15, 2009, might have to be pushed back to Nov 30, or December 1 to accommodate those who want to join the NaNoWriMo.

What if we had our very own Ilokano National Novel Writing Month, would you join?