5 Reasons To Write Your Novel during NaNoWriMo

Dianna Gunn is one of NHT!'s rotating troupe of teen bloggers.You can visit her own blog at diannaswritingden.com

BY: DIANNA GUNN

Can you write a novel in a month? Every year in November, thousands of ordinary people from all over the Internet ask themselves this question. Not only do they ask this question, but they try really hard to answer it by participating in a challenge called NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo, invented by the wonderful and wise Chris Baty, stands for National Novel Writing Month. The goal is to write 50,000 words of fiction — a short novel — in a month. The challenge is run online, with a number of forums and a very active community. You can even set your region and meet local NaNoWriMo participants. They tend to be extremely friendly if a bit eccentric. The NaNoWriMo community is one of the most supportive communities I've ever been part of.

Why should you participate in NaNoWriMo? Well, I've got a few reasons for you (after the jump!):

1. To prove you can write a novel — I wrote my first novel during NaNoWriMo, and so have hundreds of other people. Once you've written one, it's much easier to write all the ones after that. You know that you can do it. Many people even go on to publish NaNoWriMo projects.

2. To get into the habit of writing — NaNoWriMo influences you to write on a more regular basis, whether or not you manage to write every day. It also gives you a simple word goal — 1,667 words a day. 50,000 is just the right kind of goal. It's a short novel, and it's something most people can accomplish while working or attending school full time.

3. To meet new, like-minded creative types — I've met some of the most amazing people I've ever known through NaNoWriMo, both locally and on the forums. They are people from every walk of life, many of them with huge creative talents other than writing. Some of them design jewellery, others sing and write music, and others paint or do pottery. It's an amazing group of people all working towards the same goal. There are many friends to be made and there's so much to learn from the people there.

4. To produce a first draft — Too many people spend years, decades even building the worlds for their stories, working with characters, and never getting more than halfway through a project. NaNoWriMo forces you to stop criticizing and analyzing your work and to just write, focusing on quantity instead of quality. Your story often changes a lot no matter how much planning you do, and it's much easier to get an idea of what your story looks like when you've got a proper draft of it.

5. To have fun — NaNoWriMo is all about having fun. It's about having fun with your ideas and making new friends. It's about not taking your work too seriously and being willing to try something completely outrageous, all in the name of word count. It's about allowing yourself to throw crazy twists and turns into your plot. It's about writing a book — while having the most fun possible.

I hope that you will come join me and thousands of other people this November at NaNoWriMo. I'm pretty sure that with the support of the wonderful NaNoWriMo community, you too can write a novel in a month!