Four months until what? NaNoWriMo of course! For those of you who are newish to my blog, you might have missed my posts last year from before and during November to highlight the wonderful event that is inter-National Novel Writing Month. It started as National, but has quickly grown to a world wide event!
Here’s a quick definition from NaNoWriMo.org:
What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month’s time.
Who: You! We can’t do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let’s write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.
Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era’s most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.
When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.
It’s July now and it’s time for me to get to planning! I will make the 50,000 word count this year. I WILL!! Well, I hope that I will. Last year was a success and a fail at the same time. I made it as far as ever have into NaNo, 16,000 words, but that was still 34,000 words short!
So here are my calculations for 2010:
November 2010 = 30 days =50,000 /4 weeks =12,500 words a week (6 days) = roughly 2,000 per day.
If I can break my story into the 4 Sequences (parts) of 12,500 words each, that will be my weekly goal, with me trying for a daily goal of 2,000 words. …Yikes.
My first step to preparing for NaNo is to start thinking about what story ideas I have lurking around my brain that I’d be comfortable writing for a month. My second step is kick up writing on my current Work in Process, and start trying to hit 2,000 words a day.
Is any one else going to do NaNo this year? Let me know and we can start planning together!
July 13th, 2010 - 2:45 pm
Can’t wait for NaNo this year. The best thing that happened last year was meeting you, which eventually led to this awesomest critique group. So, NaNo WriMo rocks, essentially. I think your story for this year sounds awesome. Hopefully, I’ll have enough interest in my first book to push me toward writing the second book during NaNo this year. Here’s hoping!