NaNoWriMo

 

November is upon us, and writers out there are chanting, “Nano, Nano!” If you haven’t heard, November is National Write a Novel Month. The website/group challenges authors to write a 50,000-word book in just thirty days. What? How can this be done? Well, with 1,667 words a day, you too can write a novel in a month. Okay, let me back up.

National Write a Novel Month is, at its base, a challenge to write—to put pen to paper, fingers to keyboard, pencil to cardboard, and dash out a whole book quickly. It started over twenty years ago with a small group of authors challenging each other to finish a book in a month. It’s grown widely over the years. Now with upwards of half a million people participating, the community and contest have become a part of the writing community vernacular.

NaNoWriMo is touted as a contest, with those hitting the 50k goal deemed “winners.” What do you win? A set of coupons and some digital pics for your social media. What? That’s it for writing an entire book? The point of the site/forums/contest is to get people writing and support them throughout the drafting of a novel.

Rules (if you choose to comply…) are as follows: You must start a new project on November 1st and write at least 1,667 words each day. No cheating. No reworking old work. No editing old work. Nothing but fresh words on the same project all month. If you be a rebel, none of the rules apply.

What can you write? Anything and everything, as long as it’s the same project. Or not, if you rebel. You can enter word counts on the website to track your progress. You can also team up with friends through Buddies or find local writers through your region and forums.

If the rules don’t matter and the points don’t count (I say in a Drew Carey voice) then what’s the point? Writing, community, and resources are the point. NaNoWriMo gets the writer off the couch, at the workstation, and writing with tons of support.