Writers? Nanowrimo?

This has nothing to do with gardening, so I guess it goes here? I just wondered if anyone is involved in NaNoWriMo? Now if you don't know what that means, then I guess you're not involved. ;-) What it stands for is NAtional NOvel WRIting MOnth, and the website is http://www.nanowrimo.org The whole point is to write a novel, of at least 50,000 words, during the month of November, and they do this every year. Clock starts ticking at 12:01 November 1 and stops ticking at 12:01 December 1. If you just write 50,000 words of a novel, that's fine, too. But you have to basically start from scratch.

Anyway, I was wondering if anyone else was involved. I participated last November for the first time, and I won. I actually finished. And fruitcake that I am, I've decided to do it this year, too.

I have six weeks to think of an idea, plot, characters, etc., all without doing any of the actual writing of the novel.

It's maddening, but fun.

And you won?? I like how that just slid out like a normal breath. LOL CONGRATS!

It sounds like fun and a real mental and personal challenge. I have to ask. How do you know that people don't start until November? I guess you just have to take it on trust?

What was your novel about?

This is interesting. Let us know more about your experience, it sounds great.

Mary Jo

Yes, more details please. Is the contest open to anyone? I know there are some very good writers here on DG. :-)

WH - thanks for posting this. I'll be signing up this morning - what a fun site!

The contest is open to everyone and anyone. There are no prizes, no money, although if you finish and they verify that you do, you do get to download a winner's certificate. Until the 30th day, it's on the honor system. You post the number of words you've written. To get listed as a winner, sometime in the last five days you upload a text document to them. They verify that you've passed 50,000 words and declare you a winner. Nothing's published, unless you want to put a short excerpt (up to several pages worth) on the site. They don't even read your manuscript. They just do a word count.

The whole point is to get people writing. Yes, I won last year, my first year, and I was thrilled. It proved to me that I really could write 50,000 words in 30 days. And they weren't all crap. I'm pretty pleased with what I wrote. Book needs finishing, polishing up, and a little heavy revising, but I'm going to continue to work on it.

This year, just about everything got set aside because of the house -- looking for it, bidding on it, getting the loan approved, getting an inspection, getting the owners to make repairs, and then moving in. Way more stress than I signed up for, more than there should have been, and then chronic fatigue took over. I'm finally starting to get some of my energy back now.

So I haven't done much writing. I hope to jumpstart myself (again!) this November.

Definitely try NaNo. If you want to write, you really don't have anything to lose.