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  3. Bosses would do well to be alarmed. November is here, and with it a good chance that the back office isn’t processing data, but

Bosses would do well to be alarmed. November is here, and with it a good chance that the back office isn’t processing data, but

admin2013-09-23  36
问题     Bosses would do well to be alarmed. November is here, and with it a good chance that the back office isn’t processing data, but knocking out a novel on the sly. It’s " National Novel Writing Month" , a peculiar American invention that has improbably become an eagerly anticipated rite around the world.
    Knock out a novel in a month: it can’t be hard. The premise of the NaNoWriMo, as it’s known, is that all writers need a deadline and a kick in the backside. In 30 days contestants have to knock out 50, 000 words. How else to get those 1, 666 words a day, except on company time? Twenty-one Californian writers started the online writing spree in 1999. Last year more than 200, 000 joined in worldwide, though fewer than a fifth completed a full manuscript. If growth continues at the present rate, each American citizen will attempt to write a short novel by the year 2027, according to one calculation. The organizers call it all empowering and harmless fun. But still there’s something in the enterprise that feels annoyed.
    NaNoWriMo relies on the peculiarly American belief that every person has a story—or a novel, or a book of any kind—inside. There is no analogous drive to write the Great French Novel, or the English, or the German. The very notion that a novel is in everybody’s grasp, and could be knocked out as a draft in just a month, is far more likely to induce some cringing in other countries.
    Their horror can be summed up in a revelation shared by NaNoWriMo’s founder, Chris Baty, who found to his delight that " novel-writing, we had discovered, was just like watching TV. You get a bunch of friends together, load up on caffeine and junk food, and stare at a glowing screen for a couple of hours. " Most writers who are dedicated to the craft would beg to disagree. The more apt metaphor is that used by a New York columnist in the 1940s; "It’s easy: you simply sit down at the typewriter, open your veins, and bleed. "
    Some argue there is nothing wrong with building a small city in the Republic of Letters, populated with mostly 20-something enthusiastic amateurs. That, after all, is what NaNoWriMo really is, with its forums and pep talks and town meetings worldwide. Professional heavyweight authors such as Neil Caiman, Jonathan Lethem and Audrey Niffenegger cheerfully encourage all these scribblers, reasoning that forcing writers to sit down and write is no bad thing. The web has the power to unlock untapped riches of untutored talent, so the thinking goes. Indeed, Sara Gruen’s bestselling novel "Water for Elephants"(2006)began as a NaNoWriMo draft. So too did Erin Morgenstern’s debut "The Night Circus" , recently reviewed in The Economist.
    Others are more dubious. Laura Miller at Salon has attacked the program for its " nar-cisstic commerce" , complaining that the last thing the world needs is 37 , 500 more awful novels every year. Mr. Baty acknowledges that the vast majority of first drafts are utter rubbish , but he says that no one is imposing this nonsense on the marketplace—at least not yet.
    What’s new now is that many can. No longer must these green hand authors simply file their manuscripts away when NaNoWriMo ends. We instead expect to see them flooding Amazon and Lulu as self-published e-books. Thus enters a new oversupply of product on a saturated market. In recent years the pay for writing novels has been on the decline; it stands to reason that few established writers welcome a small army of amateurs biting into that shrinking pie.
Which of the following is the best title for the passage?
选项 A、National Novel Writing Month—Its Past and Present
B、National Novel Writing Month—A Modern Way of Writing
C、How the Internet Help Modern Literary Writing
D、Fight Against "National Novel Writing Month"
答案B
解析 主旨题。本文以公司白领们十一月份埋头在办公室电脑前写作的场景开篇，介绍了独特的美国小说写作实践——“全国小说写作月”；接着在第二段介绍了这个活动的具体情况；第三段详述了该活动的理念和宗旨；接下来在第五、六段分别列举了“全国小说写作月”的支持者和质疑者的观点；结尾段总结说，在网络大行其道的今天，“全国小说写作月”的创作理念、实践与网络商业模式的结合可能会给小说创作出版带来深远影响。综上所述，[B]“‘全国小说写作月’——一种现代的写作方式”最能概括全文主题，故为正确答案。[A]“‘全国小说写作月’的前世与今生”并未在文中提及，故排除；[C]”互联网如何助力现代文学写作”和[D]”与‘全国小说写作月’的斗争”虽在文中有所提及，但都不是文章的主要内容，故均排除。
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