Could You Write a Novel in a Month?

Well, friends, another October has come and gone. It’s time to turn back our clocks, change our Halloween-themed Twitter handles, and get annoyed at premature Christmas songs and store displays. And for the writers out there, it’s time for NaNoWriMo.

For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo, or NaNo, is an abbreviation of “National Novel Writing Month”. Every November, writers around the world set forth with the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel in just 30 days—the idea being that it’s a realistic measure (about 1,667 words a day) of getting a first draft down on paper, so that aspiring writers don’t spend the rest of their lives aspiring to write a novel, but actually get it done.

Writing a novel in a month can be harder than it sounds (and to be honest, it sounds pretty hard to me!), and many writers fail to “win” NaNoWriMo, falling short of the 50,000-word goal within the 30-day time limit. Many writers spend the months preceding NaNo outlining their plots and chapters with the intention of winning come November. The folks who organize NaNoWriMo each year also provide resources and community to those joining the race, which has become something of a phenomenon since its first iteration in 1999.

I actually won NaNoWriMo once, during its summer iteration, Camp NaNoWriMo, back in 2011. I wrote a sci-fi/superhero novel, which, after hitting the 50,000-word mark, I never actually ended up finishing. The process of writing during NaNo is an unusual one. Many participants encourage “cheating,” that is, using shortcuts or tricks to reach 50,000 words more easily, such as never deleting any text in your document or reusing paragraphs you’ve already written for “flashback” scenes. There are also purists who abide by a strict set of rules to avoid “cheating,” though ultimately, these are just two approaches to NaNo out of many. While I’m anti-cheating in just about every aspect of life, I make an exception for NaNo. After all, the only person you’re held accountable to is yourself, and if you still get the novel done (without plagiarizing, of course), does it really matter how you did it? Though I never finished my NaNo novel, I had a ton of fun writing it, and at the very least I have some semblance of a draft if I ever want to go back to it. No regrets!

This year, I’ve decided to participate again, but as a NaNo rebel instead. My goal is to write at least 50,000 words worth of content, which includes my blog posts and assignments from clients, instead of a novel. It’s been a long time since I wrote fiction on the regular, and besides, I need to get back into a writing routine anyway. What better way than to rejoin the community after so many years? (And hey, thanks for reading my first 475 words!)

What are your thoughts on NaNoWriMo? Are you participating this year? If so, what are you most excited to write about? Drop a comment below!

For more information about National Novel Writing Month and its community, please visit nanowrimo.org.