Nano writing challenge how to#
Nano writing challenge free#

Yet many writers fiddle with word choice and sentence structure as they draft, completing unnecessary edits that inhibit their productivity. The purpose of a first draft is to get your story out of your head and down on paper. This progress will lead to a sense of accomplishment and creative momentum that you can carry into your writing practice long after NaNoWriMo comes to a close. In learning to overcome resistance and other pesky writing issues, you’ll get more words on the page than ever before. Instead, you’ll take a moment to figure out the issue at the heart of your “block,” then find ways to resolve it so you can get back to writing ASAP. Once again, you simply don’t have time to waste if you want to win. The challenge of NaNoWriMo ensures that you won’t cry “writer’s block” when these issues arise. “Writer’s block” is a scape-goat term that many writers apply to any number of issues that inhibit their ability to write, including resistance, creative burnout, developmental story issues, and a lack of clarity concerning what to write next. Take advantage of these conditions to forge a writing routine you can carry within you into December and beyond. Track your daily writing during this time, and you might just discover when and where you do your best work. If you’re anything like most wrimos, then you’ll likely need to sneak in a little writing during odd hours and in odd places, too. There’s nothing like the need to write over 1,500 words a day to help you carve out time to write. The keener you are to win the challenge, the easier it will be to sit your butt in your chair and get words on the page. Don’t be afraid to get a little desperate. With 1,667 daily words to pen, you don’t have time to waste.

Nano writing challenge how to#

Fortunately, there’s no better challenge to teach you how to push past resistance and write than NaNoWriMo. For many, simply getting started can be the most difficult hurdle. If you’re ready to revolutionize your writing life, then here are eight additional ways that I - and more importantly, that you - can benefit from participating: I’d written over 50,000 words of fiction.īut that isn’t all that NaNoWriMo helped me accomplish.

And by the time November came to a close, I’d finished my first draft. On November 1st, I settled into my desk chair with a dogged sense of determination and wrote, and wrote, and wrote. The words were awful, but I didn’t care. If I could write 50,000 words of fiction in a month, then I would know the writing life was for me. For me, this challenge seemed the perfect gauntlet for proving my creative mettle. I’d considered giving up writing for good when I discovered NaNoWriMo in the summer of 2014. No matter how much I longed to write, I just couldn’t seem to sit down and make words happen. It wasn’t long before I began to fear that I wasn’t “good enough” to be a writer, and that fear quickly activated a dreaded sense of resistance. Despite focusing on the same project for more than two years, I’d failed to finish a first draft, constantly rewriting and overhauling my story’s plot each time doubt sank its teeth. The early years of my writing journey were turbulent, to say the least. To say that becoming a wrimo changed my life would be an understatement.

Nano writing challenge free#

Winner prizes often include discounts on writing apps such as Scrivener, Campfire, Novlr, and ProWritingAid, as well as free access to writing courses via sites such as The Great Courses and Writing Mastery Academy. Don’t forget your winner badges and certificate, too! Think you might like to participate in this year’s event? Joining the challenge is simple:

At, writers can publicly share their challenge progress, earn awards for achieving particular project milestones, and receive prizes should they achieve their goal of writing 50,000 words of fiction. NaNoWriMo also provides writers with some much-needed motivation by gamifying the writing process. Factor in the host of social media conversations that spring up around the challenge, and, in many ways, NaNoWriMo has become an exclusive cool-kid club for writers - one that anyone around the world can join. Online forums, pep talks from published authors, and regional write-ins allow writers to connect and encourage one another. The community surrounding this annual writing challenge certainly doesn’t hurt. Short for National Novel Writing Month, this annual event challenges participants to write 50,000 words of fiction in the month of November, an average of 1,667 words per day.Įvery year, over 500,000 writers worldwide take part in this online and in-person event - and that number continues to grow. What makes NaNoWriMo such a popular affair? Want to challenge yourself to write with consistency and commitment?Ĭonsider joining this year’s NaNoWriMo challenge.