November is National Novel Writing Month, and California Lutheran University is providing a space for students to work on creative writing projects in Pearson Library’s Gallegly Center in honor of the month-long event. 

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is dedicated to inspiring writers of all ages to continue working on their writing goals. According to NaNoWriMo’s webpage, anyone can sign up to set their goals and milestones and connect with other writers. The webpage said the main initiative of NaNoWriMo is to encourage each writer to participate in a challenge of writing 50,000 words by the end of November. 

Rachel Smiley, director of Pearson Library who started her role in July 2022, said she brought the idea from her previous institution. 

“For two hours a day, this is just a kind of dedicated creative space so people can come in and just get to work on whatever they want to do,” Smiley said. 

Librarian Erin Sommers helped plan the month-long event, and she said the idea was originally created for students, but staff and faculty are also invited. Smiley also said she aims to include both students and faculty so everyone can dedicate time to creative outlets.

“We want to encourage everyone to be creative, to relax, and maybe work on something outside of what they must do for classes,” Smiley said. “The library can be a space where students can come for academics, but they can also come to be creative and work on their projects.”

Smiley said even though the month encourages novel writing, she wants to promote all forms of writing, and said poems, short stories or class writing assignments are welcome to bring to the Gallegy Center. 

According to Sommers, the Gallegly Center is being utilized for this project due to its space and capacity. 

Sommers said all the work done during National Novel Writing Month is individual. However, she said she hopes like-minded individuals use the Gallegy Center to their advantage.  

“The goal is to provide them the space and the energy to talk with other people and collaborate. If they’re working independently, they have something to help them while working on their creative writing. It could be a personal project or something for the class, whatever it might be,” Sommers said. 

Jess Rodil, writing center coordinator, said The Writing Center is collaborating with Pearson Library by giving suggestions for the NaNoWriMo organization and spreading word about the event. 

“The main goal is to try to engage interest to those people who do come to kind of create a good experience for them,” Rodil said.

Rodil said Sommers has created a display for the workshop and is working on staffing some of them throughout the month, and said she hopes to add support through guided writing exercises so others can share their written work and keep each other motivated.

Rodil said she participated in the writing challenge years back and is excited to see it come to Cal Lutheran. 

According to Sommers, publicizing the event has been a challenge for Pearson Library, and a limited number of individuals have heard about it. However, with time, she said she hopes to spread the word to get more participants throughout the month. 

Sommers said if students want to contribute ideas or suggestions to help promote further student involvement at Pearson Library they can contact [email protected]. 

The National Novel Writing Month initiative will be held Monday to Friday from 3 to 5 p.m. through the month of November.