The NaNoWriMo in the Room

You’ve heard of it, but what is NaNoWriMo?

The Basics

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It takes place every November and welcomes writers of all stripes to write 50,000 words within the month. It’s not a contest, your prize is pride and 50,000 words towards a first draft. Over the period of thirty days this breaks down to 1667 words a day. Now if you want just want the basics then you should check out the FAQs (https://nanowrimo.org/faq) on the website. If you want an insider's view of how it works, stick around.

Not so Basics
I am going to say this once and I want you to take this to heart.

THIS IS SUPPOSED TO BE FUN!

Yes, lots of people have published their novels (after significant editing) and many people use NaNoWriMo to help write the first draft of their novels. The goal of NaNoWriMo itself, though, is to have fun while challenging yourself. This is not a contest. This is not life or death. It is a personal writing challenge. In the end, all that really matters is that you tried.

NaNoWriMo is about the act of creating, not the perfection of prose. Everything can be edited (after November) except the empty page. NaNoWriMo helps you fill that page. It takes the ‘I want to write a novel someday’ into ‘I wrote a novel’. For many people, myself included, it is the thing that makes you realize that you can write a novel. There are a lot of aspects to doing NaNoWriMo besides attempting to write 50,000 words in 30 days. One of the greatest things that you will find is the social aspect. It may strike you as odd that the social aspect is a key component to succeeding at NaNoWriMo for a lot of people. Writing is generally considered a solitary activity, but NaNoWriMo makes it a social one.


If you came here from Twitter, you might already have come to the realization that a community of writers can really rev the engine of creativity. They can encourage you on days when the words come slow and cheer you on when you’re having good writing days. Perhaps you’ve even taken part in a writing sprint or two. This is something that NaNoWriMo promotes - the aspect of a cooperative community among writers.

Have I convinced you yet?

Okay, I’m not really trying to convince you to take part in NaNoWriMo. If you came here because you were curious you might already be sitting on the fence about taking part. If that’s the case, let me tell you something. My first NaNoWriMo was back in 2008. I signed up to do it on October 28 with a vague idea for a story I really wanted to write. It took me over a month to decide to even do it from the day someone first told me all about it. The thought that finally convinced me to give a try was ‘Why not?’

Seriously, why not? Is there a really good reason not to try? I couldn’t think of one and that is why I decided to do. When you boil everything down - if you want to write a novel you need to write. A novel starts at a first draft and, most people will tell you that first drafts suck. They are meant to be bad because this is just you telling yourself the story you want to write.