What is NaNoWriMo? Tips & Gifts for 2023 NaNo novelists
S.R. Beaston
Crafty with words, wit, and wisdom, just add caffeine to make it more interesting.
Writing can be a lonely career or hobby. Some writers (like me) might choose it for that exact purpose, but even I feed off the hype that specific events elicit. With the internet, any day can be an event, but the most well established of them really brings out a great challenge and camaraderie.
Writing a novel in a month sounds like something only Brandon Sanderson and Stephen King have in common, yet the writing community decided to take such a challenge and make a yearly event out of it. Welcome to NaNoWriMo.
What is NaNoWriMo?
NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month: 30 days a dedicated to writing 50,000 words in November. You can check out their website $ here.$
The Goal of NaNoWriMo
The goal is simple. Writers take the challenge to write 50k fresh words of a fresh manuscript within 30 days. You can tweak the goal to your specific tastes—write a novella, start and finish a collection of short stories or poetry—but the primary focus is to write a novel.
Rules for NaNoWrimo
The rules for NaNoWriMo are based on the honor system, and can be a little lenient. There’s no race or grand prize though, so lying about your word count will only make you sad that you didn’t make your goal.
Here are the rules:
- You must write 50,000 words or more in the span of the month.These words should ideally be new, but some use this time to revise.
- It should be a novel. There are terms within the NaNo community like “NaNo Rebel”, meaning you rebel against the rules. There’s even an official badge you can claim with that title. They do embrace that you may not follow the rules and that’s okay, but as the name states, the idea is to write a novel.
- You must be 13 years or older to participate. From ages 13-17, there is even a $ Young Writers Program$ you can join.
Tips to win NaNoWriMo
Here are a few tips I’ve learned after years of participating in NaNoWriMo and winning only one in full. (Writing ‘The End’ never felt so good!)
1. Use Preptober
$ Preptober$ was designed by the community to get you as ready and pumped for NaNoWriMo as possible. Here, the best thing you can do is outline your novel. It can be as detailed or as short as you want it, but outlines really help navigate the process.
Quick outline tips:
- Don’t spend more time on an outline than you want.
- Learn who your characters are if nothing else.
- Outline in the format that is easiest for you to read and follow.
2. Join the community
NaNoWriMo dedicates part of its website to display local meetups for NaNo. You can search by region and see your closest writing groups. Even if you live too far from the closest meeting, groups usually host their own discords and other online tools, so you don’t miss out on the energy the community can bring!
3. Buy merch!
That’s right, I said it. Sometimes, the best motivator is a writing-related mug, a new journal, or an ambiguous desk decoration that vaguely represents a pending scene in your WIP. NaNoWriMo has their own $ store $ full of some of these things, and I recently indulged for the first time. If nothing else, it holds my writer-fuel.
4. What comes with winning NaNo?
Winning and participating in NaNoWriMo can get you tons of cool benefits! Companies sponsoring NaNo offer discounts and gifts for NaNoWriMo novelists. Things like writing tools for world-building, formatting, editing, publishing, and drafting.
Here are a few of the options available for NaNo 2023:
NovelPad has promoted NaNo and discounted their yearly fee for participants for years. Personally, if it weren’t for winning NaNoWriMo and trying out this amazing writing program with the discount, I wouldn't even be writing this.
For 2023, they're offering a 15% discount with code WRIMO2023 for ALL NaNo participants, and winners receive an extra special 30% discount.
NovelPad is free to use for all NaNoWriMo participants throughout the month of November.
But, of course, the biggest prize is knowing you have the capability and discipline to write a novel, or at least 50k words of it, in 30 days. That’s more than most aspiring authors can say and by far one of the hardest things to accomplish.
With NaNoWriMo just around the corner, make sure to set up your account and your writing tools, and we hope to see you in the community. Good luck and happy writing!
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