National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

[Sage]

Copied over from AW Admin's old sticky. Here's some info about the event.

NaNoWriMo or National Novel Writing Month starts at Midnight November 1st (i.e. Halloween night after midnight). The goal is to write a 50,000 (50K) work novel in a month. The emphasis in on writing, not revising. The expectation is that you will write your novel, set it aside to give it and your brain a rest, and then revise in January or later (or whatever works for you, revision-wise).

50K words works out to writing approximately 1,667 words a day for the month of November.

Everyone who completes 50K words is a winner; you can display a nifty badge, and there are some killer discounts on various writerly things, like the Scrivener app, for those who duly register an account and word count at the official NaNoWriMo site.

The idea is not to actually start drafting or writing your novel until Nov 1. But you can take notes, create characters, plan, outline etc.

The site has a lot of resources; you should absolutely check it out. Some useful things:

The NaNo Prep 101 Guide is a super place to start.

What Is NaNoWriMo explains the basics.

See also the NaNoWriMo Young Writers resources, in or out of the classroom.

 

[Sage]

While the classic NaNoWriMo rules are indeed that you start writing your novel on November 1 and write 50K during the month, there are lots of people who participate as NaNo rebels. You may use the NaNoWriMo event for a novel that is in progress, for editing, for writing scripts or poems or fan fiction or multiple picture books or whatever. Some may judge, but the site even encourages different ways of doing NaNoWriMo these days. Have fun and get some writing stuff done, and your NaNo was successful, in my opinion. You just might not get that shiny Winners badge.