Hello friends! The end of October is here and NanoWrimo is starting in a few days. And guess who’s participating this year? Me!
For anyone reading this that may not know what NanoWrimo is, it is National Novel Writing Month where you try to write a novel in 30 days, with the goal being 50,000 words (this is roughly 1,667 words per day). 50,000 words is roughly the length of a short novel. This was originally created by a small group of friends trying to hold each other accountable with writing their stories, and over the years it became bigger until it was its own organization: NanoWrimo. Originally, National Novel Writing Month was in the summer. But over time, it was changed to November.
Now, it’s not my first time participating in NanoWrimo. I participated unofficially in 2016-ish (I’m pretty sure it wasn’t 2017), then officially with a NanoWrimo account in 2018, and 2021. Each of those three tries I never finished out the month and therefore “failed” NanoWrimo each time. I would either lose momentum because life and imposter syndrome got in the way, and I’d just quit altogether; or I’d just start entirely too late into the month to be able to reach 50,000 words in enough time. Hopefully this year will be different. And already, I’m starting off on a different foot.
For one thing, I will have a writing buddy this time around and we have agreed to keep each other accountable. We will also be having our own little writing parties with writing sprints included. Another thing I am doing this time around is, I am going to start writing a story that I have already plotted out. In previous years, I would just randomly start writing whatever came to my mind once November hit. This was sooo not the right way to go about things lol. I had no plan, no brainstorms, no direction. And that’s why I would never reach 50,000 words.
This year, I am starting with a story that is already generally plotted. I know my set up, my inciting incident, my climax, and my resolution. I even wrote down bullet point ideas of what I want to happen between each of those story beats. More than anything, I am feeling excited about this story idea and I am hoping I can get as much as I can down on the page, and that it equals to 50,000 words. This is the most excited I have felt for NanoWrimo so, I’m letting this excitement and positivity propel me into November. Fingers crossed this month is a success!
I got this NanoWrimo calendar idea from another blog whose name I can’t remember. I stumbled upon it when looking for November calendars on Google. This blogger had it on her website as a freebie, however, it didn’t entirely fit my needs or taste. So, I used the overall template design and recreated a version for myself in Canva. I printed it out and have it hanging on my cork board above my desk.
I am going to write in how many words I write each day, and the boxes on the right contain the number of words I should have completed by each of those days. By November 10th, I should have written 16,670 words if I’ve been writing 1,667 words per day. Even if I end up writing less on one day and more on another, I still want to have reached 16,670 words by November 10th. And so on for the other word count goals.
I also created a placeholder book cover in Canva and I’m not gonna lie, I really love it! Lol even though I was only using a super basic Canva template, it is fueling my excitement for writing. When I showed my writing partner, even he wanted to try making one for himself 🙂
So, that’s it, friends! I am ready for NanoWrimo. I’ve been watching some videos on YouTube about how other people are choosing to prepare for NanoWrimo and wow, people are pretty extensive lol. I admire everyone’s preparation efforts. For myself, I can’t go that much in depth without getting bored with my own story. When I plot every single detail and do chapter summaries, it makes me feel like my story has already been told and I end up not wanting to actually write it. So, doing a basic outline is what I found is working for me right now and is keeping me excited.
If you are participating in NanoWrimo this year, much success to you! May the writing and creativity gods be ever in your favor ~
The Cloud Runner 