Hey i know I’ve probably asked you this a long long time ago but could you tell me what is nanowrimo cause I’ve been trying to read up on it and still don’t get it!!

NaNoWriMo is basically a month-long event (u can sign up for at nanowrimo.org) every November where writers all across the world pledge to write 50k words of something, novels, poems, anthology series, fanfiction, whatever. The official goal is 50k words as that’s what the on-site word-count is calibrated for but some people go for less some people go for more, it’s like, whatever.

There are some very loose guidelines that nobody really cares about, like some people (like me for the first couple of years) come up with new ideas every November, others might continue an ongoing project, others again are editing or whatever, the point is that by the end of November you have 50k words you didn’t have before November. That equals 1,667 words every day.

You can sign up to a region and see who’s from that region and participate in regional events (like my region is Hungary ofc and it’s actually a small but p active community, they constantly have write-ins and other events to support the writers of the region), but the NaNo social media (I only follow twitter) constantly has Q&A’s with writers who volunteer their help, word wars, word sprints, and other stuff to motivate participants. On the official site you get pep talks from published authors and other updates as the month progresses, like there’s always a 11k weekend around November 11th where I think everyone tries to write 11k in three days, but there’s also a double-up weekend where you’re supposed to double your daily average wordcount and stuff.

In the end you copy+paste your finished (or unfinished, it doesn’t have to end at 50k) product onto NaNoWriMo’s ~word confirmer (that’s not what it’s called) and if it is indeed 50k (it’s usually slightly off from let’s say Microsoft Word’s word counter but not radically) then it validates you as a winner. You can keep writing if you want, validation starts on November 20th I think and lasts until the very last second of November 30th.

And if you win then yay! You won! o/ It’s a common mantra of participants that if you hit 50k you’re more than allowed to feel like a winner but if you didn’t hit 50k you’re not allowed to feel like a loser.

A lot of people are against NaNo because apparently it glorifies quantity over quality but to that I say, if it’s not your kinda thing, don’t participate in it. I wrote my best stuff during NaNos. Sometimes that’s the only thing that will force me o put words down. Some people work great under a deadline even as imaginary as 30 days. The whole purpose of NaNo (to me) is to get you to plan, to think, to write, and even if you stop at a few thousand words, or a few hundred, at least you had the initiative to try.

I’ve had so many different experiences with NaNo. I’ve had tragic failures and unexpected triumphs, I’ve learned so much and talked to so many great people, it’s really a huge community of supportive dorks who just want to finish a novel. Every October I’m filled with an inexplicable buzz over preparations and expectations. There’s always the panic of being able to balance real life and writing but most people just say goodbye to their social lives for that month x) But some people can hit 50k within the first day and never sweat it, there’s a whole support group for overachievers alone (like me, yay!)

Sorry, this turned into a love letter to NaNoWriMo. I’ve bolded the tl;dr part 😀

There are two other events affiliated with NaNoWriMo called Camp NaNoWriMo during the months of April and July. The same rules apply mostly, except you can sign up to it at campnanowrimo.com, you can set the word count to any goal (above 1k? I think?) and it will calibrate your ideal daily word count based on that, plus you can have cabin mates? Which I think are supposed to work like regions except with people you can pick based on? I don’t know I’m a hermit writer, I just write alone 😀