All About NaNoWriMo

For those that haven’t heard about NaNoWriMo before, it’s short for National Novel Writing Month (yes it should be International Novel Writing Month since hundreds of thousands of people worldwide take part, but that’s America for you!)

In short: you have to have to write 50,000 words of a work starting 1 November and ending on the 30th. Originally this was supposed to be a NEW work, but now the rules allow you to use an existing work. However, it’s much more fun writing something from scratch.

1. It’s self-adjudicated. You can cheat on your wordcount, you can upload 50,000 words of random text on the final day, and technically “win”. But you’ll know you haven’t really won!
2. It’s hard work. The first week is generally all-guns-blazing when you’re full of ideas, slowing a little in Week 2, and struggling in Week 3. By Week 4, once you’re past the 40k mark, it’s plain sailing into the home stretch.
3. It’s brilliant fun. You get a real sense of community with people all over the world, and there are endless “write-ins” organised in libraries and cafés – or now online, due to the pandemic. The sense of achievement by the end of the month is huge!

I highly recommend NaNoWriMo for any writers who need a bit of a push to get some words on the page.

(You can set yourself a lower work count, work on an existing novel, or even write poems. It’s up to you. Ultimately it’s about your personal achievements, and what you want them to be!)

Back in 2016 I wrote several blogs during the month, you can read them here:

• NaNoWriMo Day 1
• NaNoWriMo: End of Week 1
• NaNoWriMo: End of Week 2