November is National Novel Writing Month

NaNoWriMo has been around for quite some time. And if you have been active in the pen and paper community, you have probably heard of it. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month.

“Whatever you thought NaNoWriMo was, it is more than that.”

NaNoWriMo is a Writing Event

NaNoWriMo was founded by Chris Baty “accidentally” in 1999. It started as a challenge to write 50,000 words of a novel during the thirty days of November. Since its conception, there are now hundreds of thousands – estimated at 300,000 – of NaNoWriMo participants.

A novel worth 50,000 words is the goal and it’s definitely challenging. The time-boxing of one month can really keep your momentum steady compared to just writing sporadically the entire year (or years).

Another great thing about NaNoWriMo is that a lot of writers are doing the same thing at the same time. There is a community that will support and help you achieve the goal. Some writers have met new people as well because of the meetups and events that other WriMos host.

It is also a social networking site

Writing a novel alone can be difficult, even for seasoned writers. NaNoWriMo helps you track your progress, set milestones, connect with other writers in a vast community, and participate in events that are designed to make sure you finish your novel.

https://nanowrimo.org

The NaNoWriMo website also has a portal for helping you set your goals for your writing project and track them. All you need to do is sign up and then set up.

You can also connect with your friends and meet other people within your region.

The website also offers resources for writers such as Pep Talks, where well-known writers (i.e. Andy Weir, Julie Murphy) write inspirational letters for NaNoWriMo participants to read. NaNo Prep, a workshop to help you prepare for your project, and deals for different writer tools.

NaNoWriMo is a Non-profit Organization

NaNoWriMo is also a non-profit organization that supports writing fluency and education. They have several projects such as Camp NaNoWriMo and Young Writer’s Program (for young writers 18 and under). They also partner with libraries and community spaces through their Come Write In program to lend spaces for WriMos (NaNoWriMo participants).

So if you are an aspiring author/writer/novelist, you might find NaNoWriMo interesting and useful. Perhaps you can approach this by using other techniques like stream-of-consciousness journaling or maybe use your bullet journal to track your progress.