National Novel Writing Month. It has finally started.
For those of you who don’t know what National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short) is, it’s an annual event that takes place in November, where people around the world try to write a 50,000 word novel in the span of a month.
Of course people rebel and write non-fiction, poetry, memoirs, even song lyrics. And those with a decent amount of sanity left aim for a lower word count. Those who have lost all sanity aim for a higher word count, like 75,000 or 100,000 words.
But I suppose we are all crazy. We hear voices in our heads and instead of seeing a psychologist, we allow those voices to go on escapades, meeting other voices and getting into all kinds of shenanigans. Then we write it all down.
Yes. Very crazy.
It’s November 1st, which means it’s the first day of NaNoWriMo. This is one of the best days for me, when I get a ton of writing done with a hefty dose of excitement and adrenaline.
The other best day for me is the day that I declare the last, which isn’t usually the 30th. On whichever day I do declare my last, I can write around 4000 to 5000 words, which is enough to rocket me to that 50,000 word count goal.
But on this first day, there’s the excitement of starting something new. The thrill of fresh characters and novel scenes, pardon the pun.
One of the things I like to do during NaNoWriMo, is stay awake until 00:00 on the 1st of November, so that I can write as soon as possible. It’s something that I mentioned in my NaNoWriMo Traditions post, and since I’m one for keeping up traditions, I did it again this year.
I managed to get 3810 words, a pretty good start for the first day of NaNoWriMo!
A Thank You
Before I get into my goals for the month, I wanted to thank the Carleton Place Writers’ Group. It was my dad that had told them about NaNoWriMo, but their support and motivation had kept me going for a long time. So thank you very much.
If you want to check them out they have a blog as well!
Goals for the Month
I am aiming for 50,000 words this year. But I’m not aiming for 1667 words per day. Instead I plan on doing 2000 per day, and I’ll take five days off during the month, in order to avoid burning out.
For the first time in awhile, I want to go to a write-in. It’s been ages since I have, and so I want to reignite the tradition that had fizzled out over the past couple of years. It will be difficult, as I have social anxiety, but I am willing to push through the fear.
I am also going to do the Extreme Harry Potter Word Crawl. Maybe not all of it, but I want to give it a try.
A word crawl is a writing activity that mashes up different writing challenges. Some of those challenges are about reaching X amount of words, or writing for Y amount of minutes.
There are also combinations where you have to write X amount of words in Y amount of minutes, or else you’ll have to write even more words to make up for it.
As I said before, we writers are very crazy.
As well as doing word crawls, I will be doing word sprints this month, on Mondays and Fridays every week. These are the (Eastern) times:
- 10:00 – 10:30
- 13:00 – 13:30
- 16:00 – 16:30
- 19:00 – 19:30
Whenever I’m about to do a word sprint, I’ll announce it on Twitter, so follow me there if you want to sprint with me. What are your goals for NaNoWriMo? Are there any crawls you’re interested in doing? Let me know in the comments!
Cozy Rebekah 