NaNo Starts Now

 

If you're a writer, or have a writer in your life, you've likely heard of NaNoWriMo, or, my preference, NaNo. It stands for National Novel Writing Month, and it takes place in November, during which the goal is to write a complete novel (or 50,000 words of a long-form novel) in the span of thirty days. That breaks down to roughly 1,700 words a day, which sounds like a lot, I'm sure, for new writers, but which is a pretty typical daily wordcount for anyone who writes for a living. When I'm working on a project, I give myself a daily minimum of 2,000 words, and try to shoot for 2,500-3,000. 

There's as many ways to participate in NaNo as there are reasons for doing it. You can keep track of your word count progress by yourself, or in a group of writing friends, or by signing up with one of the websites that helps keep you on track. It can be a social thing, or a solo one. It can be a fun way for a new author to stick with a project for the first time, or a chance for an established author to try and knock out something new in a concentrated format. 

I've only participated "officially" once, when I started writing Walking Wounded on 11/1/16, and ended up with a 60,000 word complete novel by the end of the month. But I usually manage 50,000 on whichever WIP I have going. This is the first time since 2012 that I haven't been working on anything in November. It feels strange! 

There's been lots of talk in author circles about the inconvenience of NaNo falling in November, when holiday prep is ramping up, and finals are looming for students, and life seems to get much busier as the nights draw down sooner and sooner. There are summer NaNos for this reason; really, you could pick any month to challenge yourself to 50,000, but for the social butterflies, there's much more support - and commiseration - in November. 

Anyone out there participating this year? As I mentioned, I'm not, for maybe the first time ever. Given that Lord Have Mercy is more than 460,000 words, I'll say that counts for nine NaNos. Ha! And I'm also stepping back to focus on finding more reliable work. Good luck to everyone tackling the challenge!