November is National Novel Writing Month. That’s where the name NaNoWriMo comes from NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth. It’s a community of writers that set the goal of writing the first draft of a novel in one month. The challenge: write 50,000 words in 30 days. Yes, one book in one month.
I’ve taken part in NaNoWriMo more times than I care to count, and most of them included a few days of furious scribbling followed by a long stretch of nothing. I didn’t hit 50,000 words on the first few tries. Then, after being diagnosed with ADHD, properly medicated, and with a new raft of productivity hacks, I tried it again and finished!
That first attempt wasn’t worth publishing, nor were the second through fourth “novels.” Somewhere around my seventh try, I cranked out a pile of words worth shaping into a novel. That 2019 NaNoWriMo win turned into my 2022 novel The Goddess & The Bee, a YA fantasy set in Ancient Greece.
I’m working on Book 2 of my YA adventure and I’m going to use NaNoWriMo as a tool to generate another pile of novel-worthy sentences. The goal is to average 1,667 words each day in November.
Care to join me? The www.NaNoWriMo.org website offers suggestions for how to plot your novel, an online community of local and international writers, in-person writing sessions, and an online progress chart so you can see how you’re doing. And if you win, you get a certificate and an online confetti shower. Plus, you can buy a NaNo Winner t-shirt, which I always do as I’m all about the swag. I’m on there as JillJenkins if you want to write along with me.
Allons-y!
Jill Jenkins