NaNoWriMo
What's that? You don't know what NaNoWriMo is? Oh you poor soul, let me educate you. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. Every November tens of thousands (possibly millions) of people around the world (yes, I know I said National, but stick with me here, okay?) gather together to write a novel in one month. For the sake of the event a novel is defined as 50,000 words of a new and original story. And no, it doesn't actually have to be a novel! You can write five 10,000 word short stories that all focus on a similar theme, or a 50,000 word memoir about your life in the Philippines or you can just go ahead and be a NaNo Rebel!
You might think that it's impossible to write 50,000 words in just 30 days, but it is possible. I've done it! Tens of thousands of others have done it too! You can do it! All you have to do is commit to writing 1,667 words a day. And really, that's not a lot. It's only about 2-3 pages, depending on your writing software and your font size. A few pages, I bet you have a few pages of a novel sitting around in your head, just waiting to be put down on screen, or paper!
So how do you do it? The first step is to sign up! Head on over to www.nanowrimo.org and sign up for an account today. It's 100% free, and I promise you won't regret it. Then you can go ahead and start writing! Today is Day 1, and there's plenty of time left to write. Grab a snack (and some caffeine, trust me on this one, you're going to want to caffeinate), and get to writing. Open up Word, or your notebook and start putting words down. And don't worry, it doesn't have to be any good. We're writing novels in 30 days folks, but no one said anything about writing good novels. Trust me, just get it all down, and you can spent December, January and February editing. Oh, that's another thing, your Inner Editor is going to want to pipe up and make changes. Before you start writing, grab some rope and tie him up, okay? You're on your own for this one!
I don't want to bore you with a lot of text, and besides, you've got some writing to do, so I'm going to let you get to it. Go sign up for an account, and add me as a friend if you'd like! Writing is easier with buddies! (I'm CarynSKA on the site too) There are all kinds of local writing events that you can track down and participate in, and if there's nothing close to you, there are WordSprints and virtual write-ins on twitter (follow @NaNoWriMo, @NaNoWordSprints and check out the hash-tag #amwriting for more goodness).
So that's it! Go write! Have fun and give in to 30 days of literary abandon! I'm going to add a word-count widget to the site for the rest of November, so you guys can check in on my progress, and hassle me if I fall too far behind. After all, what are friends for?
Happy Writing and remember: 1,667 words per day, and you'll hit 50K on November 30th!
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