Many years ago, a friend told me about NaNoWriMo, which is short for National Novel Writing Month. I was intrigued by this challenge to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November so I signed up and committed to hunker down in front of my computer for the month.
I can’t really say that it was fun – it was actually a lot of work and gave me a new appreciation for writers who churn out novels on the regular. Luckily that year, Thanksgiving was at the end of November and I had a bunch of time off from work so I just hung out with my friend and we wrote for 4 days straight.
But what exactly is NaNoWriMo? NaNoWriMo is a nonprofit organization that focuses on writing and education. It’s a social network and a way to meet other likeminded writing people. Most people know it as a writing project that takes place during November where participants attempt to write a 50,000-word novel.
Although it begins on November 1, don’t worry if you haven’t started writing yet – you still have plenty of time.
One of the books that I read in preparation for my month of writing was No Plot? No Problem! This book is written by the founder of NaNoWriMo, Chris Baty. The book basically lays out the strategy of how to get through each week so that you end the month with 50,000 words. It’s pretty much filled with pep talks and tools to keep you motivated.
The website for NaNoWriMo is awesome and has so many resources for writers. There is an online community, tips for getting over writer’s block, writing prompts, and so much more. You can even select the community you live in and find out where in-person meetups are happening so you can meet up and write with other participants.
When I participated, I definitely took some writing prompts from the website and inserted them into my story. It made for some random scenes in the middle of my novel but I had fun placing my characters into these unfamiliar scenarios, plus it added words to my word count.
I didn’t attend any of the meetups, but there are so many places to meet other writers. Like I said above, the NaNoWriMo website has lists of in-person meetups. Additionally, just in my area, there are write-ins hosted by Folio and Hugo House all throughout November.
According to the website, you need to write approximately 1,667 words a day to reach the goal of 50,000 words. Some days I wrote 0 words. Some days I wrote 5,000 words. Some days I wrote exactly the amount I had to. But at the end of the month, I had 50,000 words written in a Word document.
A lot of published books have started out as NaNoWriMo novels so there is a lot of inspiration out there. For instance (according to Wikipedia), some notable titles are:
- Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
- Anna and the French Kiss by Stephanie Perkins
- The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
- Cinder by Marissa Meyer
- Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
Personally, my completed novel was … not good. In fact, I’m pretty sure it was horrible. But the point of NaNoWriMo is not to write a novel that is ready to be published. The point is to start writing a novel that you can then edit and add to. It’s to get you started and show that you can do it.
Happy writing and good luck Wrimos!
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