There are 3 more days to sign up for NaNoWriMo - National Novel Writing Month. If you haven't heard of this before, it is held each year in the month of November. As if we don't have enough to do with the holidays coming up, but sometimes when we are the busiest, we get the most done.
That is why I signed up. I tend to write when the mood hits. It's hard to force good writing, and there are days when life gets in the way and finding the time to sit and let your imagination run free isn't always easy.
The premise of NaNoWriMo is that between November 1 and November 30, you will write a 50,000 word novel. It must be original and you can't have a co-writer. No one will read this novel if you don't want them to. The word count is verified by scrambling the novel and sending the words to NaNoWriMo to verify the count. They, then erase it after they have verified the count.
This is an exercise in discipline and should give writers who finish it a great feeling of accomplishment. Your novel will be basically a month long free writing session where you write to your heart's content without worrying about editing. Only a portion of writers who sign up to do this actually finish the task. The ones who do will receive a certificate. Established writers do this, first time writers do it, and writers all over the world do it. You'll be in good company and there are many chapters across the U.S. and probably in other countries as well, that meet to give each other encouragement and have parties at the end to celebrate the accomplishment.
I have a story idea that has been pecking at my brain for a while that I plan to use for this project. Fifty thousand words divided by thirty days is 1666.66 words per day. That's too many sixes for comfort and I want to give myself a little extra time in case I have a day where the words don't flow or I get too busy to do it, so I'm aiming for twenty five days and two thousand words per day.
Many people end up with published books from this project. If you are interested in doing this, go to www.nanowrimo.org to get started.
