NaNo is Coming!
It’s time for NaNo again! National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo or NaNo) is a yearly event where writers strive to write 50,000 words in just 30 days. It occurs each November and 2008 is the tenth anniversary for NaNo.
NaNo was started by Chris Baty and a few of his friends. They got the crazy idea that they wanted to each write a book. They needed a way to determine that they had succeeded, so Chris pulled the shortest novel that he could find off his bookshelf and counted the words. It was Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and it was 50,000 words.
The best part about NaNo is being a part of a huge writing effort. You and 25,000 other writers, all around the world, banging out novels in the space of a month. There are regional groups that sponsor “write-ins” for “WriMos” (people participating in NaNo) in local areas. They meet in coffee shops, restaurants, libraries and just write. There’s something exciting about being surrounded by other writers typing madly on laptops, Alphasmarts or writing longhand.
You can sign up to participate in NaNo at their website, www.nanowrimo.org. It’s totally free. I’ll be participating as well. Got a science fiction novel that has been bugging me to get written. You can follow my progress by adding me as a Writing Buddy. My profile is here. Or follow me on Twitter as I’ll be reporting my progress there, as well.
50,000 words in just 30 days may seem impossible. Sure, it’s short for a novel, but a lot of words to kick out in just a month. You’d certainly have to drop every other activity in your life just to have the time to write that many words. Right? Wrong. 50,000 words in 30 days is just 1,667 words a day. You can write 1,667 words each day easily, if you are properly prepared for the challenge.
From now until the first of November, I’ll have some tips for you to help you get prepared and send your word count soaring. Sign up for NaNo today!
Related posts:
- Get Ready for NaNoWriMo 2009
- NaNo Update
- What I Learned From NaNo Fail
- NaNo Update and Writing Tips
- Yet More NaNo Tools and Resources
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2 comments
Sara on October 16, 2008 at 11:09 pm
So, if you’re twittering your progress, isn’t that taking time away from writing the novel, which is the purpose? I still need some convincing on this twittering thing…
Cheryl on October 17, 2008 at 6:50 pm
Hi Sara,
So far, twittering just takes a few seconds, so I don’t think it’ll interfere with the NaNo writing. A quick tweet with my word total after each writing session will add another layer of motivation-peer pressure to keep writing. Don’t want to look lazy in front of the world!