[Books] NaNoWriMo 2011

[Arcilux]

Anybody else planning on taking on the NaNoWriMo challenge next month? This will be my fifth year attempting, and hopefully first success.

For those unfamiliar, NaNoWriMo stands for the National Novel Writing Month. (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) Even though it says National, people from all over the world get involved. It happens every year in November, and the goal is to write a novel of at least 50,000 words between November 1st and November 30th.

There are no prizes, no cost to enter, no judges or referees, it is just a personal challenge to encourage writing. A lot of budding authors often get tied up trying to make sure every sentence is absolutely perfect, and often this bogs them down and the story never gets finished. NaNoWriMo encourages just getting the story down. Feel free to ignore plot holes, grammar problems, and poor word choice. Once you have a completed novel, you can take all the time in the world editing, adding, and modifying.

Also, by having a large group all working on their novels at the same time, it provides a much needed support group.

If anybody else on MMO-Champion is planning on attempting NaNoWriMo, or if this is the first time you have heard about it and its something you are interested in, speak up! We have a lot of book fans in these forums, how about writers?

[Morae]

I tried it. I didn't finish it in time, but it sparked me an inspiration for something bigger. It lasted for two years in which time I finished storyline of 35 chapters and total of 335 pages. I kind of just wanted to try, if I could do it.

[Arcilux]

I tend to be really slow and meticulous with my writing. The only story that made it from beginning to end took 3 years, 210 pages, and I'm not happy with it. As for NaNoWriMo my past attempts were:

November 2007: Fantasy - ~12,000 words
November 2008: Fantasy - ~17,000 words
November 2009: Mystery - ~31,000 words
November 2010: Fantasy - ~23,000 words

Now that I am done with school I'm hoping to have more time and desire to write, and with any luck 2011 will be the year I top 50,000 in a month. Only problem is I don't have a plot outline prepared yet. 28 days and counting to get ready and have some general ideas.