We’re only a week away from the beginning of November, and for many writers around the world, this means that it’s nearly time for NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month. In November, writers from around the world pledge to write 50,000 words.
I first took part in NaNoWriMo in November 2014. I used NaNoWriMo to kick start the first draft of the novel that I’m currently editing. It was a great challenge, and it enabled me to write the first draft of my novel a lot quicker than I would have done without taking part in the challenge.
In 2015 and 2016 I didn’t take part in NaNoWriMo because I needed to focus on editing my novel, so instead, I took part in NaNoEdMo. NaNoEdMo stands for National Novel Editing Month. In March, writers aim to edit 50,000 words. I didn’t want to wait until March to try NaNoEdMo, nor did I want to miss out on the NaNoWriMo excitement, so I decided to do NaNoEdMo in November 2015 and 2016. As with the NaNoWriMo, doing NaNoEdMo helped to motivate me to complete my novel drafts.
Now it’s 2017 I had planned to take part in NaNoWriMo again and write a new novel. Sadly, things haven’t gone to plan. I still have my novella to write, and I’ve not planned enough of my next novel to be able to start writing. I’m a planner, you see, so I need to have a good idea of what I want to write otherwise I will suffer from writer’s block. And I still have my novel to finish editing. So, because I still want to take part in NaNo, I have decided to do things differently this year.
So, what do I plan to do? Well, I’m still going to take part in NaNoWriMo, but instead of writing a novel, I will write my novella, and to reach 50,000 words I will write short stories. I will also do NaNoEdMo, so I can finally finish the fourth draft of my novel. Well, that’s the plan. I’ll keep you posted on how I get on.
Are you doing NaNoWriMo or NaNoEdMo this year? If yes, then I would love to hear from you, so feel free to comment below.
Keep writing, folks!
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