Over the next 60 or so days, you’re going to hear me talking about NaNoWriMo a lot. Some of you who were around during last year’s event know what it is but for those of you who don’t, here’s my take on it.
National Novel Writing Month, more commonly referred to as NaNoWriMo, is in its eleventh year. It is a non profit organization funded completely by its participants. The premise of the event, which lasts through the month of November, is to write a 50,000 word novel in just 30 days. It may seem impossible, but I assure you, it is quite possible!
To reach this seemingly unachievable goal, you set smaller goals for yourself. The standard daily word count goal is just 1500 words. This adds up to about three pages in Microsoft word, of course that’s considering you use the default font settings (Times New Roman at 12 point font or Calibri in 11 point font in Word 2007). Of course, if you look at the photo below, you can clearly see that my daily word count often exceeded that 1500 standard.
Click to enlarge
The goal is to have a 50,000 word novel at the end of 30 days. I won’t lie, most of it will be trash and probably about 50% of it will be deleted, but its a start. And that is the whole point.
When I started this adventure last November 1st, I had no idea what I had gotten myself into. Let me tell you relationships, housework, and hygiene will suffer. But it is worth it. I promise.
It is not easy but there is no feeling in the world like looking at that beautiful purple bar and seeing your name as a winner.
Just to explain, everyone who gets to the 50,000 word goal (and proves it by uploading a scrambled version of their novel to the website’s word counter) gets a purple winner bar and access to the site’s winner’s section. They have all sorts of exciting goodies such as avatars and miscellaneous graphics to use.
There was just nothing like it in the world. I can’t tell you how excited i was to finally see that bar turn PURPLE and seven days ahead of schedule too! I worked so hard to get it done before Thanksgiving so I could have the holiday to spend with my family. Turns out, I also got very sick twice that month, right at the beginning on Halloween night, and just a few days after I finally got to my goal.
I’m sure that my being sick the second time could easily be contributed to the many hours I spent working on my novel, often until three or four in the morning. But it was all worth it.
If you’re thinking about getting into it, I have written a blog post on how I got through it. There’s plenty of tips in there for you! Happy writing!
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