Are you having trouble putting words on paper? Has your muse kidnapped your hero and run off to a warmer climate? Have you been saying, “I want to write a novel, but I just don’t have time,” or “I just can’t get past chapter three”?
If any of these apply to you, I have a simple-yet-challenging solution: grab your writing dream with both hands and join Nanowrimo – National Novel Writing Month. Sign up on the Nanowrimo website and commit to writing the rough draft of a 50,000-word novel in 30 days, between now and November 30th.
Sound impossible? It isn’t, as proven by 30,000+ people who successfully completed the Nanowrimo challenge last year. I am proud to say I was one of them.
So what exactly is Nanowrimo? It’s a world-wide gathering of amateur and professional writers who gather in cyberspace every November and frantically write a novel in just 30 days. No editing, no fine-tuning, no tweaking. Just getting words down on paper (or computer.) Last year over 200,000+ people from around the world accepted the challenge.
If you haven’t signed up yet, here are my top 10 reasons to participate in Nanowrimo:
- Writing daily will jumpstart your muse.
- Nanowrimo tracks your word count. Feels good to see those words pile up.
- Writing under a time crunch helps shut off the internal editor.
- You’ll stretch yourself as a writer—and discover you’ve written some better stuff than you thought you could.
- It will give you something to edit ad nauseum later.
- You will join a worldwide community of writers for encouragement and inspiration.
- You’ll get a nifty little badge for your website to say you’ve completed the challenge.
- Writing THE END is a glorious feeling.
- You can prove everyone wrong who said, ‘You’ll never write a novel!”
- Do it for YOU — because you want to.
Are you joining the challenge this year? Have you done Nanowrimo before? How did it help you?
There’s still time to head to the Nanowrimo website to sign up.
Happy Writing! Let me know how you’re doing…
The Conversation
Good for you for taking the plunge! I’ve done NaNo in the past, but signed up for some classes this month.
Thanks. It was an awesome experience! Here’s hoping your classes go well this month.
All very good reasons.
For me, it’s a great way to get those words flowing on the page!! Thanks, Beth
I signed up for NaNo again. This is my 5th year, and I’ve finished every year so far. It’s great motivation from the NaNo community that helps keep me going and writing every day. Plus, my sister does it as well, and I refuse to let her out-write me!
Nothing like a little sibling rivalary–love it! What a great motivator. And I’m blown away that you’re doing this for a FIFTH time! You inspire me. Go, Laura!
There are a couple of reasons on that list I hadn’t thought of. I’m doing it for the first time. So far so good … LOL We’ll see if I am still saying that in a week. Good luck to all.
You can do it!! Good luck–and happy writing! It’s a wonderful experience!