What is NaNo?

ezc_19

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This might be a dumb question, but what does NaNo mean? From what I understand, it seems to be some kind of competition or contest.
 

alleycat

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National Novel Writing Month.
 

ezc_19

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Thanks! I guess I missed out on November......maybe next year.
 

Ciera_

For a lot of us it isn't a competition, just a month in which we encourage eachother to strive to write as much as possible. That's my understanding, at least. We have JaNoWriMo going on right now (on a much smaller scale).
 

Geraint

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This thread should be a sticky - how about it, mods?
 

Virginia5332

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Try the January version.

Or, just create your own.

I didn't realize there was a January one? It's something I really want to do this but November is literally the worst month out of the year for me to do it.
 

blueobsidian

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I didn't realize there was a January one? It's something I really want to do this but November is literally the worst month out of the year for me to do it.

There aren't any official ones in other months, but many people have created spin-offs on their own websites or on the NaNo forums. Chris Baty (the founder) also has a book called No Plot? No Problem! that helps guide authors through writing a novel in 30 days.

The fact that November is a busy month is actually part of the point for many people, though. It's not as much of a challenge during a slow month when you might have days of free time.
 

BeatrixKiddo

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My mom recently told me about it (before I saw you guys posting about it on AW, she happened to find it online) I was going to try it, but I lost my resolve. Still thinking about it, for the next one.
 

PrincessTeacake

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So, do any of you try to get these novels published? Do you pass them out amongst yourselves or is it strictly for fun and not to be taken seriously?
 

Sassy3421

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I've read a lot of people on AW mention their Nano novels got them published. I hope mine does the same :) it's honestly the best book I've ever written.
 

Snowstorm

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So, do any of you try to get these novels published? Do you pass them out amongst yourselves or is it strictly for fun and not to be taken seriously?

My first NaNovel (2009) is being sent out to query agents. I'm very proud of that novel. This past NaNovel (2010) was just for the practice of writing. Eventually I'll rewrite it to see if it's publishable. It's a good story.
 

Virginia Llorca

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NaNoWriMo

So the people who run the event don't actually do anything with all the manuscripts they receive?

One agent posted, "Don't send us your NaNoWriMo entries."
I felt kinda bad about it cuz it really wasn't a very raw MS.
 

Caitlin Black

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So the people who run the event don't actually do anything with all the manuscripts they receive?

One agent posted, "Don't send us your NaNoWriMo entries."
I felt kinda bad about it cuz it really wasn't a very raw MS.

1. The NaNo owners don't actually "receive" the contestants' manuscripts. You just validate your word count in a temporary upload, which is deleted as soon as the words are (electronically) counted. No manuscripts are collected by the NaNo owners.

2. With NaNovels, I would polish them, and if I felt they were good enough to worry about submitting somewhere, I would just not mention that the novel was written during NaNo. Agents receive submissions all the time. They might receive quite a few right after NaNo finishes, but they'll still receive some non-NaNo submissions during December and January. Just don't mention it's a NaNovel. If the writing is good and polished, they won't care when they receive your novel.
 

benbradley

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So the people who run the event don't actually do anything with all the manuscripts they receive?
They don't receive any manuscripts (except perhaps erroneously from a few participants who mistakenly thought otherwise). There's a place on the website where you can paste your novel and it will count the words in the MS (it may not even send it to the server - it may be a bit of Java running on your browser that counts the words), to update your wordcount on the site, and verify when you actually pass 50,000 words and become a "winner." With thousands of winners, there's no way they could read even a small fraction of them anyway.

One agent posted, "Don't send us your NaNoWriMo entries."
I felt kinda bad about it cuz it really wasn't a very raw MS.
That's because of another (regrettably for the agents, not too small) group of NaNoWriMo participants who don't read the directions, and think the first draft of what they just wrote is publishable. That's basically what they mean, "don't send us your raw MS."

If you've edited your MS and had it read and critiqued by beta readers who think it's as good as a "real" novel and ready to go, bla bla bla, then go ahead and query, and send as requested. It might be good not to mention the words NaNoWriMo or the month November, as that might unfairly bias an agent against your MS.

Once it's sold to a publisher, feel free to brag about it being a NaNoWriMo novel - they've got a page somewhere with the names of published novels written for NaNoWriMo.