It’s that time of year again! And no, I don’t mean Christmas. Although, like many others, I have a strong opinion on the topic of whether the Christmas season begins on November 1st or the Friday after Thanksgiving. But I’ll leave that for another time.
Today is all about NaNoWriMo! This is only my second year participating in NaNoWriMo, but I enjoyed it so much last year that I knew I wanted to make it a yearly tradition, so here we are.
If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, it stands for National Novel Writing Month. Essentially, it’s a huge, world-wide writing challenge for the whole month of November. There are a lot of variations of NaNoWriMo, and obviously it is up to the writer to decide what their specific goals for the month are, however, if you join the NaNoWriMo challenge on the official website (nanowrimo.org) it automatically sets your goal for 50,000 words. This means approximately 1,667 words a day. It’s a hefty goal, but it’s one I’m aiming to complete. For this challenge, I’ll be working on a manuscript of mine that is already in progress. I’m only about 8,000 words in right now, so getting 50,000 more this month would make a huge dent.
If you visit the website, there are tons of amazing resources and communities to be involved with that make the challenge extra fun. It also keeps track of all your progress and provides analytics to give you an idea of your writing habits. Here’s a picture of what my profile looks like after setting it up this morning:
So far, it’s a lot of zeros, but that just means there’s nowhere to go but up! There is also a full schedule of activities throughout the month. For example, today there is a kick-off party with a special guest speaker, writing prompts, and how-to tips.
It’s an amazing collaborative effort, and I encourage all writers to try it at least once. It’s an amazing motivator that also keeps you accountable, which is something I desperately need most of the time. I also think it’s helpful if you’re in a writing slump and require a bit of a kickstart.
Well, I guess it’s time for me to stop procrastinating and get to writing my 1,667 words for today. Wish me luck! And, as per usual, I’m still on the lookout for my towel. Fingers crossed I’ll find it during NaNoWriMo.
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