National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

If you enjoy creative writing and use the internet a lot, you probably already know about NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is an annual writing challenge where you can commit to finishing a 50,000 word draft of a novel by the end of November. It’s been running since 1999 (I think I first heard about it through LiveJournal when I blogged there in high school) and this year I’ve decided to give it a go.

… well, sort of. It was a spontaneous decision, so I didn’t plan anything in the lead up to November (which would have been a good idea). I also didn’t plan for any time off work, so since I’m still working full-time hours at my day job my writing time is limited to evenings after work and weekends. As you can guess, I’m not exactly committing to write 50,000 words this month… but I am committing to sit down and write each day. No matter how much I end up with. So that’s a start!

So far it’s working alright, and I’m really enthusiastic for the new project I’m working on. I want to write a third book – not related to my unpublished novel Rare Birds and not related to my story collection Watching Cartoons with Boys – and so far I’ve done a lot of planning and gotten some draft vignettes down. Who knows what the rest of the month will look like, but I think with enough planning next year I’ll give it a proper go.

If you want to read more about NaNoWriMo you can look at their website here. They have great support forums and encouragement across their social media, plus there are always Facebook groups you can join in your area to find other writers and share your progress.

 

 

 

Image source: Estée Janssens via Unsplash (CC0)

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