November is National Novel Month and AHS is celebrating my writing a collaborative novel. Jennifer Cory, the School Based Tech Specialist, came up with the idea and English teacher Niki Holmes helped amplify the details.

“[Corey] came up to me and said ‘hey this could be fun,’ and I said ‘yeah it’s crazy, but it could be fun.” Holmes said.

Holmes encourages everyone at AHS to work on the novel because it’ll have a positive impact on them.

“The idea of working with other people to create something means we have the opportunity to learn from each other’s skills and create a stronger product,” Holmes said. “Another reason this is such a great idea is because the process of writing is a good activity for people, especially students, to help sort out their thinking and be creative.”

Although the novel is geared more towards AHS students, teachers, and staff, the Google document is actually available to anyone with a FCPS Google docs account. In an email sent to all of Annandale staff, teachers were asked to post the link on Blackboard. Joining is easy, you just need to click on the link and begin typing.

“Everybody is welcome to make a contribution,” said Holmes. “There is no training needed nor an interest meeting, just jump in and add some of your creative writing to whatever the person above you wrote.”

The novel has no set parameters. The writers will choose the plot, theme, characters, conflict, and setting.

“That is the joy of collaboration,’ Holmes said. “Not knowing what’s going on. It gets created as people work together.”

Students have been advised – any changes you make can be viewed by anyone, even if you delete it; so don’t delete someone else’s work or add something insensitive or rude.

The writing of the novel begins on Tuesday, November 1st and conclude on Wednesday the 30th.

“Hopefully at the end of the month, we’ll have a complete mess of a novel,” Holmes stated. “I’ve seen short novels and long novels, so who knows what will happen here at Annandale.”