National Novel Writing Month is an annual creative project on the internet, where crazy people try to write a novel (or 50,000 words of a novel) in a month. Alongside the main even in November, there is Camp NaNoWriMo twice annually (April and July this year), which allows for more flexible targets. It’s a great experience, and a powerful cure for writer’s block. Last April I was a winner, and in this article I share my top 10 tips for writing a novel in a month with NaNoWriMo. (more…)
It’s that time of year again; Camp Nanowrimo is back, and this time it’s serious.
Camp Nanowrimo is an extension of the popular National Novel Writing Month, where participants join other writers to try to write a 50,000 word novel in a month. Just in case it isn’t immediately clear, 50,000 words in a month is a lot. Last year I took a swing and managed 30k towards my target. This year I’m going to do better. So how have I gone about preparing to beat my previous score?
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On the first day of April I signed up to Camp Nanowrimo, an internet based creative writing project where participants try to write 50,000 words of a novel in a month. On April 30th I posted my final count. I only managed 30,000 words.
I knew I wasn’t going to make it from quite early on. The colourful, super friendly Nanowrimo website gave me a graph showing me day by day exactly how much I was falling behind; just how much lower my average words per day was than the rapidly increasing target needed to finish on time; the glaring little endnote that if I continued at this rate I would finish some time in late May.
In the last week the near impossibility of reaching my goal haunted me. In theory, sure, I could rattle out 5000 words a day. But when I sat in front of the keyboard the words would come so slowly. I would look up, two hours would have passed, and the word count would only be 600 words up. What was I doing wrong?
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Today was the first day of the @NaNoWriMo’s April Camp. In a blitz of positivity over the weekend, mostly inspired by the thought that Monday would be my last day of teaching, I signed up.
National November Writing Month is an internet based creative writing project. It’s free to take part and your nationality doesn’t matter. It challenges you to write 50,000 words of a novel in one month; you create a user profile, post your word count at the end of the day, and watch as the numbers tick on up towards your target.
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