Nanowrimo Here We Come!

By Nikki Wilson

The month of November is almost upon us. Most people think of November as the month of gratitude, Turkeys, and Black Friday. But we writers are a strange group and the month of November means frozen TV dinners, a dirty house, and lots of time with our imaginary friends. That's because National Novel Writing Month has become more than a dare, it's a movement in the writing community. When I first starting doing Nanowrimo seven years ago, many writers still didn't know what it was and now it's like the national writer's holiday! (Hmm, do you think we could petition for it to be a National Holiday? Then I could get the whole month off of work! Hahaha!)

For those of you who don't know what NaNoWriMo is, let me introduce you to the concept and the community. The whole idea is to write 50,000 words in 30 days or less. The main rules are that it has to be a new novel that you start on November 1st. Though outlining and brainstorming ahead of time are encouraged. You can sign up at www.nanowrimo.org. On the website you can select the region where you live and find out if there are any Nanowrimo events going on in your area, like write ins. Also, you make a page for yourself where you can tell about the book your working on and track your progress. You can add friends to your page, this enables you to watch your friends' progress as well and cheer them on. (My user name is nickalodeon26. Add me as your friend!) The writing community really comes alive during this month and you don't want to miss it.

Maybe you don't have a new novel idea or you want to work on something you already started. No problem. I've spent many years participating in my own version of Nanowrimo. Maybe 50,000 words isn't realistic for you, that's ok, you can make your goal and work towards it. The point is to write and to take advantage of the excitement, motivation and support that is abounding during the month of November.

This year I have a new story idea to work and I am learning a new skill to help me along...OUTLINING! Like Gina, I too have found that rewriting a story a million times is getting old and I want to find another way. So I have been outlining during the month of October and I'm so excited to get to write this story that has been brewing.

I want the MMW community to come together during this month and help each other to accomplish their writing goals. So here a few tools we can use to make the most of this month. MormonMommyWriters has a yahoo group! You can look us up (there are no spaces in between each word). There we can send messages about our progress and challenge each other. Mormon Mommy Writers also has a facebook page. If you haven't liked us yet, please come on over and do so. We will announce writing sprints and goals. One year we even had someone make us our own chat room so we could do sprints but I'm not web savvy like that. But if any of you know how to do that, please let me know. I'm also thinking we could use Twitter to have word sprints. I've been unable to get into my Twitter account to find out if the hashtag #MMWwordsprint is taken or not. Please let me know if it is and we will come up with a new one. The way it would work on Twitter is that anytime you want a word sprint log on to Twitter and type in the hashtag. You will be able to see who else is on using the same tag and then you can arrange a time to start a word sprint (meaning you start writing as fast as you can for a certain amount of time then see how many words you each wrote). I've done this a couple times in the past, but it's been awhile.

In the comments, please leave your Nanowrimo name and any ideas or links to nanowrimo communities or helps! Let's all get excited about this and support each other in our writing goals. Even if you aren't participating this year, you can cheer us on!! If you can think of other ways we as MMW's can support each other this month, please leave a comment! I can't wait to hear all about your upcoming Nano stories!!