NaNoWriMo November

It's that time of year again, when thousands of brave, crazy writers hunker down and create entire novels from scratch, over an all too short 30 day period!   This will be my 4th year, Du-Jay's 3rd, and Sagezilla's 2nd.   Nano writers from around the world, convene every November in cyberspace and in actual space in bars, coffee houses, book stores, homes and libraries.   


The personalities and topics are far flung and varied, but everyone has vowed to drop all the non essentials for four weeks and write.   I've met so many people over my lifetime, who once had dreams of being writers, or have their own "great American novel" bumping around in their brains.   Somehow, education, careers, child rearing and life get in the way, and so many of those dreamers never get started.   Sure, writing something 50,000 words long sounds daunting, especially if you're normally too busy to get everything done in a day.   That's the pure genius of NaNoWriMo.


The time frame is too short for the inner critic to rear her snarky head and edit. And it's short enough for families and friends to be good sports about living without your every waking moment.   If you're lucky, you'll emerge from the zone on December 1st with a brand spankin' new novel ready to edit and hone, and a family who's stopped taking you for granted and will appreciate all you do for them more than ever.


Give the site a few days to simmer down, since they're experiencing heavy traffic right now and are running slow.   Then check it out.   Nanowrimo has become as much a part of November as elections and Thanksgiving, and more fun than either.


I'll still be running Win-A-Disc-Wednesday and updating ChiIL Mama and ChiIL Out as time allows.   But the bulk of November belongs to my 4th novel!

What is NaNoWriMo?

According to their creative and very active web site:

National Novel Writing Month happens every November!

It is a fun, seat-of-your-pants novel writing event where the challenge is to write an entire novel in just 30 days. That means participants begin writing November 1 and must finish by midnight, November 30. The word-count goal for our adult program is 50,000 words, but our Young Writers Program allows participants who are 17 years old and younger to set reasonable, yet challenging, word-count goals.

The thing that matters most in NaNoWriMo is output. Our high-velocity approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Make no mistake: you will be writing a lot of strange stuff, and some of it will be just plain bad. But that's a good thing! For 30 days, you get to lock that inner editor in the basement, let your imagination take over, and just create!

As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants of all ages are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel.

In 2009, 167,000 adults participated through our main site, and 35,000 young writers participated through our Young Writers Program.