Ok, so we’re a bit late to the NaNoWriMo party (by like 5 days), but don’t judge us too quickly we have a good excuse… we’re lazy. All right now that that’s out of the way, it’s time to talk about the wonderfully stressful (at least for authors) month of November, otherwise known as National Novel Writing Month, which also has an “otherwise known as” and that is NaNoWriMo (pronounced nano-ram-oh). And we’re sure you’ve seen you’re social media blowing up with authors talking about their NaNoWriMo project, but we want to explain it here too. Why? Because we can.
What is NaNoWriMo
National Novel Writing Month, duh, we told you in the intro paragraph, do you even read. Nah, just joking around *hits you on the shoulder way too hard* bud. NaNoWriMo is an annual event for writing nerds that dates all the way back to 1999, and that’s like, 50 years ago, wow, time really flies. But anyway, so every November the nerds of the world gather, separately, mind you, through the internet, with one goal in mind, fry your brain in exactly one month. Well, it’s not worded exactly like that, it’s more like write 50,000 words in a month (roughly 200 pages), but is there really a difference between the two?
But NaNoWriMo is more than an event it’s also a place for nerds to socially interact with their fellow nerd-kind, which we know they’ve never done before, so it’s a truly wonderful experience, almost like seeing a baby deer walk for the first time. But besides the socializing, there are also real-world effects, and good ones at that. NaNoWriMo acts as a non-profit designed to help people around the world learn how to write, and how to do it well. And learning to write is almost always a good thing unless you’re trying to run a dystopia, in which case it is not, don’t take notes.
You can also donate to NaNoWriMo to help this cause, so if you want to do that you can click here, another way you can contribute is by buying merch, the hottest in the game dawg, so to do that click here.
The Nerds
You may be wondering why we’re calling all writers, nerds, and that’s simply because they are, no way around it, you’re all friggin nerds. But don’t get offended, we here in the Writing Shed, are also, quote-unquote, “friggin nerds.” In fact, you can see our mental breakdown at this discovery in the conclusion of our Fan-X article. But now that the mental breakdown is semi-over we embrace the title fully, and hopefully, you will too. Because if you do you can join the United States/Emirates/Kingdom/School Club of Nerds, or for short, the USEKSCN (very catchy, we know). Which is a land overflowing with bountiful communities of people who work tirelessly day and night to help each other succeed in their goals. The USEKSCN truly is a wonderful example of the peak of society. The only issue we can see in this society is that it is still a society, but alas, there is nothing we can do about that. And for those of you who don’t get our metaphor (uncultured), what we mean is that there’s a great community around NaNoWriMo that we think you should join, if not for the event then for the possible writing friends.
The Website
The only question left is how do you join this wonderful community? And the answer is simple, through NaNoWriMo.org. And don’t worry, it’s not some bootleg website designed to profit off of the annual phenomena, it’s the actual official site. The site has many features designed to get you through the hardships of writing 50,000 words, but the number one feature is “Announce a new project,” or, likewise, the button that starts it all. This is where you put the name of your WIP for the month, and also set the word goal, which will appear next to the project to give you a visual representation of how far you’ve gotten. All you have to do is update the word count every day and watch that sweet blue bar fill on up.
Other features include a place where well-known authors talk and give you inspiration and motivation to keep on keeping on. And a local community event finder, where you can find/set up writing events in your area. Another feature is that when you get a long enough streak or get far enough in your word count you can earn a badge, that does nothing but earn you gloating points (better than gold to be honest). And the last thing we want to talk about is the Buddies feature, which allows you to connect with people you know in real life who are participating in the event. Because of this connection, you can nag your friends to complete their project, but take note that this may backfire on you causing you to get nagged, and you’re perfect so how dare they nag you.
Will We Be Participating?
Most of us will, we’re not giving out any names on who, but a lot of us will be doing NaNoWriMo. However though this may affect our schedule here on allthewriting.com, so we hope you’re okay with either late or shorter articles because that’s what you’re getting this month. But that doesn’t mean our quality will go down, it’ll just be late is all and we’ll be dead inside from writing 24/7.
Conclusion
This event is gonna be hecka fun, and we hope you join us in this venture. And so that we don’t keep you from your project any longer let’s end it here, we hope you enjoyed the article, now have a nice time of existence.
Links
Go to the NaNoWriMo website by clicking here.
Donate to NaNoWriMo by clicking here.
Buy merch at NaNoWriMo by clicking here.
