Sticky Notes Blog

A blog of writing news, tips, and inspiration from Fat Plum

Write a novel in a month

It's time again to dive into NaNoWriMo--National Novel Writing Month. You write a fifty thousand word first draft of your novel in thirty days. Why? You choose why:

  • To show yourself you can
  • To show other people you can
  • For the sheer joy of writing
  • Because you haven't done anything really hard in ages
  • To get your novel off to a fantastic start
  • To finally get yourself over your writer's block
  • Because everyone else is doing it

Writing commences November 1 and ends precisely at midnight on November 30. In between there are tears, sweat, screams, and agony, plus a damn good lot of fun. And at the end there's a termendous swell of achievement. It cannot be beat.

There's no cost to sign up, but the non-profit organization who runs the event and manages the website appreciates donations. The website is great -- it's a meeting point/support group/cheerleading section all rolled into one. It helps you track your progress, share your joys and sorrows, and keep yourself going to the bittersweet end. See it all at www.nanowrimo.org.

I've completed NaNoWriMo twice, getting a solid draft of a novel each time. I'm working on one of those novels now -- well, not exactly working on, but thinking daily about and sort of missing. I've been mired in other projects for some time and having trouble getting back in the writing groove. Among the few rules of NaNoWriMo is the restriction that you must start an entirely new book: No revising or reworking old material. So I plan to naNoWriMo a new book this November, to bully myself out of my rut and turbo-charge my writing practice. Then I'll restart work on the in-progress novel in December.

I encourage you to join in too. Let me know if you sign up, and we'll egg each other on.

Posted by Cindy on October 04, 2005
This entry was posted in the following categories: Recommended | Comments (0)