If you haven't heard about NaNoWriMo it stands for National Novel Writing Month and spans the entire month of November. The goal is to write 50,000 words over the course of the month.
It's insane and tons of fun and every year NaNo's get together at write-in's all across the globe and churn out the words. Many complete their novels and some even go on to successfully sell and publish their novels. It can be a great success or an epic failure; depending on your statistics over the course of NaNoWriMo.
Regardless of weather you participate in NaNoWriMo or not, there are some good things to be learned from it. Like:
1. Setting goals. You have a long term goal of writing that novel that's been in your head for the past year, but how do you get there?
By setting short term goals. If you set a goal of a certain word count each day or week to achieve, and do it, then you CAN get that novel written. It's just one word at a time. It's up to you how you want to set that goal.
The goal is to write 50,000 words. Divide that by 30 days and (I'm rounding up here) you get a goal of 1,700 words a day you need to write. If you can do 1,700 words a day then that will actually get you 51,000 words in a 30 day period which is 1G over the winning mark. Personally, when setting goals, I like to hit just a little above of where I actually need to be; it allows me a nice comfort zone so that if I do find myself slacking etc.. with my small comfort zone, I'll still hit my mark.
It's personal choice. You can set your word count goals however you wish. Maybe instead of 1,700 words a day; you want 10,000 words over the weekend. I have seen authors do this. If you aren't on Twitter, get on it, and follow #nanowrimo. You'll be able to connect with other Nano's and participate in writing sprints. Many authors will post that they are going to go for a 1,000 words at the top of the hour and ask others to join them. Competition always makes it more fun! After the hour you get to post if you made it or not. I've seen writers repeat this pattern over and over during the course of a day. So you can easily write a few thousand words over a weekend just by doing this method.
2. Learning how to Outline. I've read the bios of a lot of NaNo's and it seems that those who outline their novels do the best in achieving their goal of 50,000 words. An outline can keep you focused and on task and allow you to use your time effectively. There is nothing worse than spending an hour writing 1,500 words only to figure out later that you'll need to cut them because they don't fit. Or just sitting down and writing a bunch of random crap to end up with 50,000 words, but it turns out that it's such a mess that you're not sure what your looking at, and you decide that it would be easier to rewrite the entire thing than trying to shape that word blob monster into an actual novel.
By writing a general outline for your novel, you can write the storyline in correct order, staying more consistent to where you want your story to go, and before you know it you'll be hitting that wonderful goal of 50,000 words and you'll arrive there with something that you can work with!
3. Networking. NaNoWriMo is a fun time to connect with other writers. When you make your account at http://nanowrimo.org you choose your home area and if your lucky you have people who are NaNo'ing near your home. You can participate in write-ins which are a lot of fun. There's something about being around a lot of other writer's furiously pounding away on their laptops to get your inspired and focused! Your less likely to slack if you see people around you are are passionate about taking their writing seriously.
If you don't have anyone close to you, then you can join write-in's online; many will host virtual write-ins via Google chat and other methods. If your creative you could probably do one on Twitter also. (If you can't tell, I absolutely love Twitter).
Writing is a solitary activity and it can be very isolating. Connecting with other writers is a wonderful opportunity. Not only does it cement it in that you are a writer and that you are striving to achieve a big goal, but it lets you know that you are not alone, that there are others out there just like you. Support and encouragement from real life writers can be as effective as the M&M's and espresso that you promise yourself if you can just hit that next word goal!
National Novel Writing Month is a lot of fun. Crazy, insanity fun! If you haven't done it yet and are thinking of it, go on!!! You'll be surprised at what you can achieve if you take it seriously and set some goals that you consistently work at. You may surprise yourself! Even if you don't hit the 50,000 mark, any amount that you write is better than if you'd never tried. You'll have a start! Everything gets written, one word at a time!!!!
If you are participating, please leave me a comment. Let me know your user name and I'll add you to my buddy list. It's so much fun to connect online. Feel free to add me to yours also. My username is maliyah_ash. I look forward to seeing you achieve those word goals this year!!
Wishing you much success this year!!!!
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