This is it! The moment we’ve been waiting for! You’ve heard me mention NaNoWriMo every week now for the past month and it is finally here! What is this NaNoWriMo thing? I am glad you asked! November is National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo for short. So guess what it’s about? Yep! Writing your next great novel! NaNoWriMo has a simple goal: write 50,000 words before the month of November ends.
What I love about NaNoWriMo is how anyone can participate in it. Do you have a story idea and a pen and paper? You are now qualified to participate in NaNoWriMo. You don’t need a degree, or a fancy computer, you don’t even need to spend any money! All you need is a bit of diligence and some imagination. Another thing I love is how it brings people together. A wide range of authors participate in the NaNoWriMo community, from fantasy writers to romance writers to whatever-your-mind-can-dream-up writers all share a common goal. Stay at home moms, lawyers and factory workers come together to write. Here established authors and total newbies rub elbows as they race for the finish line. What we do when we are not at our writing table does not matter. When we sit down to write our novels we all become writers, and we are all equal before the NaNoWriMo challenge.
I will admit that when I first attempted the NaNoWriMo challenge in 2012 I was trepidatious; 50,000 words seemed like an awful lot of words. I was right and also very, very wrong. Here is how it all breaks down, November is 30 days long so if you stick with it each day you need to write 1,667 words. That’s about three of these blog posts. It takes some work to get your ideas down onto the page. Capturing your dreams is never as easy as it seems, no matter haw much planning you put into it. Still I found myself enthralled as my story unfolded before me, pushing me to write more and more. I found in 2012 that 50,000 words is actually quite short for a fantasy novel. I blew past 50,000 words and was only approaching the halfway point. I did not finish that novel until January of 2013, but NaNoWriMo is not about finishing your book in November, its about proving that you can commit to your novel.
I believe this is why NaNoWriMo is important, win or fail it takes more than wishful thinking to write a novel, it takes a real commitment. Everyone knows that one guy who is constantly talking about that one book or script they have been working on for decades. NaNoWriMo rips away all of your excuses. You have one whole month, just thirty days to sit down and accomplish the impossible. Every day we sit down to write, we tug and pull at our imaginations until we get that story out and onto the page. It’s not done with magic or with wishful ideas, it’s done by sitting down, rolling up your sleeves and writing.
NaNoWriMo is the perfect environment for new and old authors alike, without a hard deadline I know I will procrastinate into infinity. November gives you thirty days to prove to yourself that you can get your novel done. That means you are in a full on sprint towards the finish line. There are no excuses. There is no room for complaining. There is no time to get your first sentence just exactly and totally perfect! There is only the word count and the clock. NaNoWriMo is a crucible designed to squeeze out your creativity onto the page before you. It is awesome.
It’s still not to late! If you want to participate in achieving your dreams head over to NaNoWriMo.org and sign up for a free account. Set up your profile, select a home region, and start writing. It’s that simple! You still have most of November to achieve your goals. Go! Chase those dreams and don’t stop until the story is told! Then keep on writing, don’t ever stop!