What is NaNoWriMo?
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. It’s a month-long challenge held in November where writers all over the world try to write 50,000 words in 30 days. The traditional idea is to write a full novel or part of one in this time, though some writers do other writing related projects.
Where do I write my story? On the website?
Common misconception, but no. The NaNoWriMo website is for tracking your progress. It’s like a goal tracker. You write your actual story in Word, or Scrivener, or your phone’s Notes app, or wherever you choose to write.
Okay, so what’s Camp NaNoWriMo?
It’s NaNoWriMo, but held in April and July instead of November. There’s also a bit more flexibility to the challenge during Camp: you can track different types of projects on the website during Camp, you can choose to have a different goal other than 50,000 words, etc. There’s also usually a camping theme to the NaNoWriMo twitter and website during this time. Camp and regular NaNoWriMo used to have different websites, but starting last year, they are now all on the same site.
This sounds impossible.
It does, but it isn’t.
What 50,000 words in 30 days boils down to is 1,667 words a day. (In July there’s even a bonus day, so then it’s only 1,613 words a day). This number is challenging, but it’s very doable.
What if I really can’t do it?
That’s okay.
Really it is.
Sometimes winning is out of reach for reasons that have nothing to do with your writing ability.
Even if you lose, you can gain. NaNoWriMo is about writing a little bit each day to end up with a novel. However many words you end up with at the end, that’s more words than you had at he beginning of the month, and that’s a victory.
Are you doing Camp NaNoWriMo? Do you have any questions I didn’t answer? Leave them in the comments below.
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