The great news is; YOU CAN!
Where to start?
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month And no, it doesn’t matter whether you say WRYmo or WREEmo. (Personally I say WRYmo because it’s short for writing, but y’know, to each their own).
It’s a month long literary adventure where the goal is to write 50,000 words. Yes you read that right, 50k in a month. Sounds impossible, right? It can be. But as someone who’s won NaNo a handful of times, I KNOW it’s possible.
No matter how you found NaNoWriMo, whether it’s been mentioned a million times on your Twitter timeline, you did a google search for writing competitions and stumbled across it, or your writer friend locks themselves away every November and you finally got around to asking ‘what the hell is happening?’ there is only one place to start: https://nanowrimo.org/
They’ve recently revamped the website. so feel free to mosey around and have a good look. Best to do that now, before November hits.
If you have twitter, I’d also encourage you to follow their twitter account: https://twitter.com/NaNoWriMo
Are there any rules?
You can pretty much do whatever you like during NaNo. Whether you write fanfiction, a memoir, a collection of short stories, start a new project or continue an existing one, there is room for you within NaNoWriMo.
Of course there are some purists who believe that the only way to do NaNo is to open a blank document on November 1st and write until you hit 50k, but the beauty of it is; you can do whatever works for you!
The only rule I would advise sticking to, is this one: Only count words written between November 1st and 30th towards your 50k total.
What next?
October is officially #Preptober and over the next month I’ll be posting some of the hints and tips I’ve picked up over the years that help me to reach 50k.
So, what say you, will you take the plunge? Let me know in the comments below.
Lisa Stapleton 