30 days and 30 nights.

Of Writing!

Bet you can’t guess what this post is about… come on… guess… Yep, NaNoWriMo, also known as National Novel Writing Month. November is almost upon us, and all over the world thousands of people are getting ready for literary madness.

Back in 2005 I did my first NaNo. Sometime soon that novel – heavily revised – is going to be published. I have a contract, that publisher has just had some delays. NaNo helped me get where I am today and I highly encourage anyone who has ever thought about writing a novel to give it a try.

If you don’t know what NaNoWriMo is, it’s a strange event where writers all over the world get together virtually and in person to write fifty thousand words in a month. The pace is grueling. 2000 words a day will get you done by Thanksgiving. 1667 words a day will get you done by the end of the month.

The core of success at NaNo is the write-ins. Believe it or not, it is very inspiring to sit around in a coffee shop, someone’s living room, etc, along with a bunch of other people and write. Many people use laptops. Some write by hand. One person in my local region even uses a good old-fashioned typewriter.

If you do decide to do NaNo then you should check out your local group and go to write ins. You can find more out at www.nanowrimo.org.

I know it’s only September, but it’s almost October and that gives you all a whole month to prepare for the madness.

I’m in. Who’s with me?