NaNoWriMo is a great writing challenge. Not everyone wants to write 50K words of fiction in November, the basic requirement for NaNoWriMo. That works out to 1,667 words a day, every day, for thirty days. Not all of us are writers of fiction, or have the time and space to write that much every day (more or less).
But there are alternative writing challenges instead of NaNoWriMo.
NaNo Rebels is a writing challenge for people who are writing fiction, even in script form, but includes people who are starting mid-novel, or possibly writing 50K worth of short stories. NaNo Rebels are officially part of NaNoWriMo; you can read this thread to find out if you’re a NaNo Rebel or not.
National Non Fiction Writing Month (NaNonFiWriMo) also known as Write Non Fiction in November (WNFIN) is an alternative writing challenge for people who don’t write fiction. You can register here if you want to have a community of your own while you write non-fiction in November.
AcWriMo or Academic Writing Month was founded by academic Charlotte Frost of PdD2Published in 2011 as a writing challenge to encourage academics and scholars to produce a 20K word (or more) academic monograph during November. Currently the rules stipulate that you set your own goal (hours, words, or another milestone) and join. It’s a great opportunity for thesis and dissertation writers, people who want to draft a journal article or academic writers with a book idea. There’s an active AcWriMo Facebook Group and a Twitter hashtag #AcWriMo.
NaNoBloPo is a challenge to write a blog post for every day in November. The challenge actually runs for all twelve months of the year, but November is the biggest month in terms of participation. There’s no length requirement, and that pictures count. While NaNoBloPo assigns a theme for each month, and also offers daily writing prompts, these are optional. You can write about anything you’d like. NaNoBloPo is now sponsored by BlogHer, and while there’s a Facebook Group, I’m not seeing anything recent; that said, there’s no reason you can’t do it yourself. You might find the WordPress.com daily post prompts helpful.
750 words a day runs all year, but they feature a special November writing challenge. The challenge is designed to motivate people to start a daily private journaling habit. The challenge starts at midnight on Nov 01, 2016 and ends at 11:59pm on Nov 30, 2016. Write (at least) 750 words every day for this month. The words can be anything, as long as they add up to 750 of them.
Are you engaging in an alternative to NaNoWriMo writing challenge for November? Possibly a personal challenge? We’d love to hear about it the comments.