NaNoWriMo

I know that we are 7 days into November but it is never to late to start.

NaNoWriMo is a writing “project” where your goal is about 50,000 words and all you do is write, write, write, write, write all the month of November. 50,000 words might not seem like a lot but that is the average amount in a novel. I am doing the NaNoWriMo in school and I find it a lot of fun.

But what is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month)?

“National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It’s all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.”

-NaNoWriMo.org
(some bits were edited out)

NaNoWriMo is really fun to do (well for me anyway) and hopefully you will join in. My goal is not 50,000 because I would never make it. Currently my goal is 15,000 but at the rate I am going I will most likely reach 25-30 thousand. It is really exciting to do, especially when you reach your goal because you have a sense of completion. If you decide to do it here are a few tips of it. These 3 tips are from Florence In Print.

1. Be flexible enough to change the course of your story throughout the month. My story usually changes direction several times and it can end up nowhere near where I thought it would.
2. Don’t edit. At all. Just create and type and don’t go back to remove words or lines. You don’t have that kind of time.
3. Write every day. A lot of people try to stick to the recommended 1667 words a day quota. Do whatever works for you. I usually start November off with a lot of enthusiasm so my word count is higher at the beginning but then it dips mid-month. It’s really nice to have a buffer for those days when the words just don’t come.

Hopefully you will join in with the fun.

To read more about NaNoWriMo click here to go to their home page.