In NaNoWriMo tradition, on the first day of November writers sit down at their computers or notebooks, and start a brand new journey to 50,000 words. But there are some who pull out that story they started x-amount of months ago, blow the dust off of it, and start right were they left off.

And technically, that is against the NaNoWriMo rules, but many have found a way around it. This is one of the aspects that I just love and also hate about NaNo . NaNoWriMo gives you the option of tailoring the rules of the month to fit your own needs. If you wanted to take that old story from the back of your closet, you could, and just not count the previously written 10,000 words in you 50k word count for the month.

And that’s only the beginning. Are you just starting to write? Is the 50k word count really making you doubt your courage for attempting NaNo? Set your goal for 25k, but keep going if you reach it early! 50K too easy for you? Why not shoot for 75k? Or even a million words! Anything is possible, but remember to stay honest with yourself and keep your goals in sight.

New Characters

There are a million different ways to find new characters to add to your stories. One of my favorites is people watching. When I’m out running errands or shopping, I always have my eye open for interesting looking people. Now, you don’t need to be a stalker, but just look for details. When you see something that catches your interest, start asking yourself questions. This also works great with photos! You could pick up a newspaper, or a magazine, and find some photos of people that you like or sparks you interest. What are they doing? Why are they doing that? Are they going somewhere? Where? What are they holding? What does it mean to them? You can also use generators, like those at seventhsanctum.com, which can often give you hilarious results, and can spark your creativity so you can get writing!