[Matchup #38 in Tournament of Bookshit]

NaNoWriMo

Central question: Can everyone be a writer?

Slogan: Thirty days and nights of literary abandon!

Duration: One month (but up to 1/12th of a person’s life if they get trapped in some hellish circle of annual NaNoWriMo’s.)

Overall effect on literature: High probability of resulting in shitty novel.

Contains a pronounced pseudo-acronym

Likelihood of sanity loss: High, but momentary

Literary Marriage

Central question: Can anyone stand to live with a writer?

Slogan: Infinite days and nights that you might rather abandon!

Duration: Eternity or until Literary Divorce

Overall effect on literature: High probability of resulting in a novel that makes other people feel like shit.

Does not contain a pronounced pseudo-acronym

Likelihood of sanity loss: Laughably high, but could be somewhat enjoyable, at least from the outside.

– Catherine Lacey

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WINNER: I’m siding with Literary Marriage on this one because it’s messier and more interesting and has a higher probability of being a catalyst for the kinds of novels I like (Most stuff by Jean Rhys, Richard Yates & F Scott Fitzgerald, among others.)