NaNo WriMo 2013 Is Coming

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) starts November 1. The basic idea is to engage in BIC (Butt In Chair) and write fiction. The goal is to finish 50,000 words by midnight on November 30. By successfully completing 50,000 words by the deadline, you win, (you get a badge!), and have a draft of a novel. Or that’s the idea.

The goal is less one of writing a novel than it is of writing 50,000 words in a month, or roughly, 1,667 words a day.

From the NaNo WriMo FAQs:

• Write a 50,000-word (or longer!) novel, between November 1 and November 30.
• Start from scratch. None of your own previously written prose can be included in your NaNoWriMo draft (though outlines, character sketches, and research are all fine, as are citations from other people’s works).
• Write a novel. We define a novel as a lengthy work of fiction. If you consider the book you’re writing a novel, we consider it a novel too!
• Be the sole author of your novel. Apart from those citations mentioned two bullet-points up.
• Write more than one word repeated 50,000 times.
• Upload your novel for word-count validation to our site between November 25 and November 30.

I like very much the attitude behind NaNo WriMo that what’s important is that you’re writing, and writing regularly. It is, as some writers have said, permission to create a first draft without obsessing over style, with the idea that later you will revise at your leisure.

Here’s an interesting thing: you’re permitted to use an outline, or notes that you’ve created ahead of time. But they discourage writers from starting with a draft or even a partial draft, and here’s why:

But bringing a half-finished manuscript into NaNoWriMo all but guarantees a miserable month. You’ll care about the characters and story too much to write with the gleeful, anything-goes approach that makes NaNoWriMo such a creative rush. Give yourself the gift of a clean slate, and you’ll tap into realms of imagination and intuition that are out-of-reach when working on pre-existing manuscripts.

Note by the way that NaNo has created a special forum for “rebels,” that is, people who aren’t writing a work of fiction. There’s an FAQ for that too; Am I a Rebel?

There’s even support for local NaNo WriMo groups. We have a lot of AWers who are NaNo veterans, and we even have an AW NaNo WriMo and Beyond subforum. MacAllister Stone has written about her own participation in NaNo WriMo, and the difficulty of maintaining a schedule.

What advice do you NaNo veterans have for first timers? What works for you in terms of finding time to NaNo?