National Novel Writing Month started in 1999 with the proposed goal to reach 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days, or a completed rough draft of a novel by the end of November. And for twenty years, many people have succeeded in this challenge. As of date, 387,913 novels have been completed through this competition by 798,162 novelists.
According to their website, National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, is “a website, a community, a wildly ambitious writing event — and so much more!” The so much more being, “a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization that provides tools, structure, community, and encouragement to help people find their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds — on and off the page.” Their non-profit achievements are impressive and inspiring. Their website boasts that NaNoWriMo “runs year-round programs across 646 regions around the world and in thousands of classrooms, and empowers nearly half a million people to access the power of creative writing.” As a writer, I am so pleased that this organization is striving to make creative writing more accessible.
I know that for some people this challenge helps them to find the motivation to write, due to it’s less intimidating approach to creative writing. But for me, I find 50,000 words in 30 days, quite a daunting task. Instead, I plan on using this challenge more as an inspiration to finish a novel I have been working on this month. As much as I would love to complete my novel this month, I would rather not rush it. And I know myself, I will get stressed out about the deadline, will possibly become paralyzed by the fear of not being able to produce my best work under such a short amount of time, and abandon the challenge half-way and just write for fun. So instead, my hope for this November is to get at least 20,000 words for my novel, and I can’t wait to get started.
I encourage you to check out the website if this interests you, the URL is below. And whether or not you choose to participate in this event, I wish you the best of luck in your writing pursuits and happy writing!