National Novel Writing Month – NaNoWriMo

November is just over two weeks away and that means another National Novel Writing Month is upon us. For anyone who does not know what National Novel Writing Month, more affectionately known as NaNoWriMo, is, it is pretty much exactly what it sounds like. Writers from all over the world attempt to write a novel in a single month.

This year, I will not be able to participate because of my editing deadline for my current manuscript, but I still wanted to talk a bit about NaNoWriMo because I’ve really enjoyed my experience with it in the past.

The basics of NaNoWriMo are to write 50 000 words during the month of November and writers can keep track of their word count on the official website found here. Just create a profile, announce your project, and add in your daily word count each day of November. Hint: you need to write 1667 words a day to finish on time. The website has been updated this year, but the new design still has a cute graph that keeps track of your goal along with all sorts of helpful stats. There are also different badges you can earn along the way.

A true NaNoWriMo is starting a brand new book and writing the first 50 000 words, but everyone is welcome to work towards their own goal whether that is working on a second draft of a manuscript, adding words to a previous project, or editing every day. The spirit of NaNoWriMo is to work on whatever your personal project needs with the support of writers around the world all focused on writing together for one month. Since 50 000 words is quite short for a novel (most tend to be in the 70k – 100k range), it is unlikely you will actually write a full and completed novel, but it is still very impressive. If you reach 50 000 words by the end of November, you will be a NaNoWriMo Winner and there are all sorts of discounts you will have access to such as for writing software programs.

Many writers use October to start planning and plotting a novel for NaNoWriMo so this month has earned the nickname of Preptober. But not a single word is written (or typed) until November 1^st.

So that is pretty much the basics of National Novel Writing Month! Are you participating this year? How is Preptober going? I would love to hear all about your project and best of luck!