National novel writing month, affectionately known by the abbreviation NANOWRIMO, is an annual contest where hundreds of thousands of people work toward the common goal of completing a novel. Through community forums, word count tracking, and just plain determination NANOWRIMO has been a launch pad for several aspiring independent authors over the years.

Which is why I signed up.

What Is NANOWRIMO?

NANOWRIMO is a writing competition that is designed for one purpose and one purpose only: get your ideas out of your head and onto the page. It’s 30 days of brain dump with the intent of getting you to FINALLY write that novel you’ve been thinking about.

Participants have the entire month of November, 30 days, to write a 50,000 rough draft (or the first 50,000 words of a longer book). Looking at the traditional publishing standards, 50,000 is awful short to be considered a full length novel. Those typically run around 100,000 words, with the novella cutoff at 40,000.

Still, keep this in mind: The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Great Gatsby are both in the 50,000 word range. Is anybody bitching that those books are too short?

NANOWRIMO is strictly a “quantity over quality” proposition. The only thing that determines the winners is word count. The more shitty first drafts the better.

Now, while 50,000 seems awful short for a novel, doing that in 30 days seems like an impossible feat to a lot of people. In order to put it in perspective:

50,000 words/30 days = 1,667 words/day

I’m not a fast writer by any means, but even pantsing Regent of Aldun AND writing it by hand I average about 1,000 words per hour. So if I were to pants my NANOWRIMO draft and write it longhand I could bang it out in roughly an hour and a half a day. That’s not too much to ask, is it?

And that’s me writing S-L-O-W. I have discovered that I can almost double that speed by doing two simple things: typing and outlining. I like longhand, but when I compare it to almost DOUBLING my speed by typing, it seems like an awful waste of time. I’ve also come to learn that pantsing is an even bigger waste of time – I spent almost 10,000 words in the middle of Regent of Aldun wandering around in circles.

The only thing I have as a speed metric is blog articles, which I outline AND type. When I do both I can reach upwards of 2,000 words per hour. That means that if I plan ahead and type my NANOWRIMO novel I can get it done in roughly 45 minutes a day. Kinda shoots the “I don’t have time” excuse right in the ass, doesn’t it?

Luckily NANOWRIMO’s rules specifically state that the WRITING has to take place in November. They allow and even encourage planning in as much detail as possible beforehand.

And the prize for winning NANOWRIMO?

There are a number of prizes for the winners. They change a little each year, but most prizes come in the form of discounts/freebies from NANOWRIMO sponsors. You also get to prominently get to display NANOWRIMO winner flair – little banners on your website that declare you a winner. Geeky as it sounds, that’s the prize that has me the most excited.

But the most valuable prie by far is actually having finished a rough draft of a novel. A lot of people have an idea for a book but very, very few people ever actually write one. The all on blitz of National Novel Writing Month looks to correct that.

So What’s My Plan?

Welll, I don’t know. Yet. I’m conflicted about the best use of that writing time.

Regent of Aldun is looking more and more like a series rather than a single novel sso I’ve thrown out a goal of having the rough draft of book 1 finished by the end of October. That leaves the rest of the story to complete, 5 or 6 subsequent volumes.

Beside Regent of Aldun I have ideas for two completely separate stories: one is the horror western I’ve mentioned before, and another is sci-fi. I’m excited about all three, but the smart move would be to complete the Regent of Aldun marketing funnel as fast as possible before moving onto another project, let alone another genre.

I’m definitely going to participate in NANOWRIMO, the only question is WHICH story I’ll be writing. Right now I’ve cleared a bog hole in my business calendar to dedicate the last week of October to planning my NANOWRIMO project.

I’m planning on posting the project concept during the first week of NANOWRIMO, along with weekly updates throughout the competition. So, if you want to see me pull my hair out jamming a novel into 30 days stay tuned during the month of November.

And you really should consider following this link to participate yourself:

http://nanowrimo.org

Thanks for reading.