Hello Writer bees!
It’s that time of year again. NaNoWriMo season. Can you believe it?
For those of you who don’t know, NaNoWriMo is a non-profit that supports creative writing and educational programs for aspiring writers. It’s also an event that challenges writers across the country to write 50,000 during the month of November. With National Novel Writing Month fast approaching, this really is a fun opportunity to connect with other writers and share creative projects.
Which leads me to the big question you’re probably wondering:
Am I participating this year?
Short answer? Yes, of course, I wouldn’t miss it! Maybe fourth time is the charm.
Here’s the thing. My goals for this year’s NaNoWriMo are untraditional, to say the least. Some probably won’t be impressed. However, they are the writing goals I’m shooting for nonetheless. And who knows? Maybe they will change during my NaNo adventure.
My NaNoWriMo Goals
- Write 20,000(ish) by November 30th. Not the usual 50,000. Keep in mind, my WIP is well underway word count wise.
- Push past writer’s block and self doubt.
- Write without deleting or editing. This has been a problem for me in Previous NaNoWRiMo trips.
I’ll admit, my WIP has been stuck lately. Writer’s block is intense, as is the writer’s doubt. Feel like I just need to get over this hill to make it to the finish line. I’m using NaNo as a vehicle to get… unstuck. To workshop new ideas and to gain momentum once again. My greatest hope is to have a finished story by the end of it.
Prepping for NaNoWriMo
Whenever I see other writers preparing for National Novel Writing Month, my heart swells with pride. Seriously, you all are remarkable. The way some of you are prepping inspires me. I only wish to have a morsel of that enthusiasm. Here’s how I’m getting ready for the main event.
- Straighten out plot outline (again)
- Create an aesthetic and inspiration board/file.
- Flushing out characters.
- Brainstorm possible additional scenes.
- Organize all these sticky notes! They’re everywhere!
In an effort to share my journey with those interested, I’ll be posting weekly updates on this blog and staying active on Twitter during NaNoWriMo. I look forward to connecting with more fellow writers out there. As always, thank you guys so much for following my writer adventures. Your support means everything.
Are you participating in National Novel Writing Month? How are you prepping? How are you feeling emotionally? What are your writing goals? Talk to me in the comments, I love to hear from you!
Stay safe and keep writing!
Love, Lady Jabberwocky
Lady Jabberwocky 
This is amazing and I wish you all the best of luck! Your goals are great and I hope you’re able to complete and if you’re not able to complete them all then I hope the one you do accomplish is the being able to write it without self doubt! 💙
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I am participating this year and doing so in an untraditional way as well. I now take the site and its community as a source of inspiration and aim to write as much as I can, but not necessarily 50k. I really enjoy all the vids and pep talks they post in Oct and throughout the most! I write year round, but I love this time of year especially due to Nano!
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I love what you’re doing!! Nanowrimo can really help pushing through writer’s block, and I love that your making your own goal, making it work for what you need.
I’ll be doing Nanowrimo this year (this will be my 5th year!!) and am doing some “soft” prepping. Very basic outline, getting character and place names down (it’s fantasy so…sooooo many names to make up XD).
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I’m also going to take a non-traditional approach after initially planning on going old school. I’m instead going to keep the word count, but do a mixture of writing: short fiction, essays, poetry, etc. I’m fairly concerned that there will be too many distractions this November if I try to write a single, cohesive novel. I don’t want to set myself up for failure.
After 17 years and only “winning” two or three times, I wouldn’t get too down on yourself if you can’t hit 50k. I typically poop out by around 30k except for those few successes.
If you or anyone needs a “buddy”, feel free to add me. My profile name is Michael_Raven on the official site.
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Omg it’s my fourth NaNo too!! Yessss let’s make it the charm this time around. Listen, also, I am the same way about non-traditional goals. Every writer has their own process and and each writer writes their own unique books. Don’t feel weird about going against the grain! You do you, girl! I think you have set a lot of great goals, and your prep sounds solid! I’m sending you good writer vibes so hopefully that writer’s block will leave soon!! LET’S ROCK THIS NANO!! ❤ 😀
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I hear you about writers doubt. Last year I was querying and feeling like a real writer, this year I’m not and working on a new project and most of time I love to write but to try and sell it later…nnnnahhhhh. Nanowrimo is nice escape, I’m going to write what I want and when it’s done I’ll have enjoyed myself and you never know, there might be something there worth keeping. 🙂 Good luck!
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Awesome. So are you writing a short story or writing a smaller portion of a longer story?
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Smaller portion of a longer story. I’m currently working on a mystery novel, which is already about 30,000 words. I’m participating in NaNoWriMo to add words to this project. 🙂
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This will be my very first NaNoWriMo! I’m a bit nervous but I’m not going to kick myself if I don’t make my daily goal. I’m shooting for at least 1000 words a day. Knowing how I get when I’m in the flow, it may be more, but I’m excited to start!
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I like your goals and your prep, especially the sticky notes!
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Thanks so much! And yes, I am already drowning in sticky notes. They’re everywhere, haha! 🙂
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This is my first time participating in NaNoWriMo and I wanna keep it untraditional like you.
We have the same word count goal 20K and I hope we can reach it!
For me it was around 20-25K words where I stopped writing at my old project so I just wanna reach that point again. Everything else is a plus!
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I’m (amazingly) 27,500 words into my tenth NaNoWriMo novel (not counting the one that was generated by a program I wrote). I’m pretty psyched to be so far along! I think it’s partly because I’ve been interacting a lot with the GPT-3 AI language model, and that keeps the narrative and textual wheels in my brain oiled.
I like your description of what you’re planning to do; for me the biggggg takeaway from NaNoWriMo is that it can be excellent to shut all of the internal censors off that tell you You Are Doing It Wrong, and just roll along for a month without self-criticism.
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I’ve wanted to do the traditional version for a long time, but there are always more pressing demands than my passion project. This year I hope to complete a short story collection. Good luck with your goals! I look forward to following along!
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