It’s finally November which means it’s officially National Novel Writing Month, also known as NaNoWriMo! If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, it’s when writers from around the world try to write 50,000 words in a month. If a writer reaches 50,000 words, then they are considered a winner of NaNoWriMo; it has nothing to do with when a writer finishes or how many writers have won before them. The goal of NaNoWriMo is not to compete with other writers but to develop a writing habit, progress in a new project, and write in a community.

This is my sixth year participating in NaNoWriMo. My first NaNoWriMo I wrote 4,048 total words. I’m not going to lie, I was a little disappointed in not winning, but it was also something I was really proud of because at the time, it felt like I had written a ton of words. The next year, I plotted and planned significantly more and ended up writing 20,109 total words. In my third year, I was actually in a creative writing class where we were required to participate in NaNoWriMo. We didn’t have to set our goal as high as 50,000 words, but I wanted to and ended up winning with a total word count of 50,013 words. My next NaNoWriMo was my first during the pandemic, and it was also the first and only time that I had finals in November. I knew months in advance that there was a good chance that I wouldn’t be able to participate in NaNoWriMo as usual. I went into that NaNoWriMo without a word count goal, and I ended up writing 5,110 total words. Last year I wrote 11,063 total words. I’m currently writing this article on November 10th, and my word count is 11,697 words. For context, the NaNoWriMo goal for today is 16,667 total words. Basically, I’m behind, but I’m not so behind that I’m super worried about it. 

If you’re interested in participating in NaNoWriMo, you might feel as if you’ve already lost because you’re just now hearing about it, but I would encourage you to just start writing today. Is hitting the 50,000 word count really exciting? Yes, but it is not the only exciting thing about NaNoWriMo. As mentioned earlier, there are several goals of NaNoWriMo that have nothing to do with word count. Participating in NaNoWriMo for as long as I have has allowed me to realize what I am capable of as a writer. I know my writing speed pretty intimately after rushing to get the daily word count multiple times. I also know that I can handle writing a manuscript project. I’ve also learned more about writing fiction in general. But I wouldn’t have learned any of these things if I didn’t try, so don’t give up before you’ve even begun!

Additionally, the writing community is so much fun to be a part of during NaNoWriMo. You can find writers participating in the challenge on all platforms of social media. One of my personal favorite creators is Kate Cavanaugh who has been doing NaNoWriMo for several years and has a ton of NaNoWriMo vlogs and videos on her YouTube channel.

So I encourage you to grab your laptops and notebooks, and join me in NaNoWriMo!

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