It's that time of year! For those of you who don't know, November is National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as Nanowrimo! During November, those participating in Nanowrimo attempt to write a 50,000 word novel by the end of the month. This is roughly 1,667 words a day and no easy task.
I've known about Nanowrimo for a few years now, but this will be my first year actually taking part. I've always put it off in the past, saying that I don't need the time pressure or I'm too busy or I don't have any inspiration to write or any other bullshit excuse you can think of. I've decided firmly and absolutely to take part this year. I have so many ideas floating in my head for what I want to write, but I never actually get around to writing them. Nanowrimo will force me, if nothing else, to get words down on the paper. I'll worry about whether or not any of the shit my fingers typed makes sense in December.
There's tons of information about Nanowrimo out there, but where I first heard of it was youtube, so I'm going to link you to a few videos that I found helpful/informative/inspiring/entertaining. I hope they'll inspire you to participate this year as well :)
- I've mentioned Kristina Horner before, talking about how much she inspires me with the sheer amount of stuff she has accomplished in her life so far. One of those things is the Nanowrimo Song, which is cute and goes through the basic stages of Nanowrimo Feels. Don't let the depressed and crazy stage scare you away, I'm sure it happens to all writers whether they're writing under such pressing time constraints or not.
- Kristina has put up pretty regular videos about Nanowrimo with advice, which can be found here and also here and most recently here
- Acclaimed author, John Green, and the puffier half of the Vlogbrothers has also done a video about Nanowrimo which you can find here
- Then there is another one of my youtube celebrity crushes, the illustrious lioness hayleyghoover who has her own video about the 5 Reasons to do Nanowrimo
You should go check all of those out, maybe they'll help you the way they've helped me--golly I hope so. People don't say golly enough, you know?
As I said before, this will be my first time doing Nanowrimo. I don't have high hopes (cause if you set your expectations low you always end up with either a pleasant surprise or an expected disappointment, neither of which is as soul-crushing as if you had actually aimed for the stars...wait a second, this was supposed to sound like a good idea...) but I am hoping to at least get a good chunk of my hopeful novel out of the way this November. So far I've got exactly 3500 words. I'm chuggin' along like a turtle, slow and steady baby--like your mom in bed last night.
If you'd like to participate in Nanowrimo, click the link I posted at the top and get started because it's November 2nd and you're already RUNNING OUT OF TIME!
happy writing
