Happy Halloween!

Andra,



I'm new to this site and have some questions to ask you: How do I go about participating in this? What is it all about? Is it about a novel in progress or what?



Jean

Jean VanDyke

Hi Jean *waves*



Welcome to the site!



To answer your questions you first need to sign up -- there's a [Sign up now!] link at the top. As for what it's about, here's an excerpt from the site:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.



Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.



Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.



Make no mistake: You will be writing a lot of crap. And that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create. To build without tearing down.



As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel. Wrimos meet throughout the month to offer encouragement, commiseration, and—when the thing is done—the kind of raucous celebrations that tend to frighten animals and small children.



In 2007, we had over 100,000 participants. More than 15,000 of them crossed the 50k finish line by the midnight deadline, entering into the annals of NaNoWriMo superstardom forever. They started the month as auto mechanics, out-of-work actors, and middle school English teachers. They walked away novelists.



So, to recap:



What: Writing one 50,000-word novel from scratch in a month's time.



Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.



Why: The reasons are endless! To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms! To write without having to obsess over quality. To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties. To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.



When: You can sign up anytime to add your name to the roster and browse the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach the 50,000-word mark by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the partying begins.

Normally you'd start a new project for this, but if you know your work in progress has at least 50k more words to go, you could use that. Note, though, what you've written before November 1 does not go towards your final word count.



There are no prizes at the end except bragging rights and a pdf certificate stating you wrote 50k words in 30 days.



You could also end up with the beginning of a novel worth continuing and possibly getting published. My first year I ended up with a good story that is now complete (70k), but is in dire need of a good polish. I hope someday to see it published.



In short, Nanowrimo is designed to encourage people to write every day.

Andra Marquardt

Ouch...too late for me to not eat too much candy.



I've never done NaNoWriMo, and I signed up a couple of months ago for this year. I don't know whether I will actually do it. Anyone who does complete it has my respect. I wish you and everyone the best of luck.



For a couple of years, some of my friends and I made up NaNooReeMu -- our "slackers' version" of the official thing, with less of a deadline (ours stretched well into December.)

Melonie McLaurin

Hi again. I just thought I'd post the link to the Lost Genre Guild. You probably don't have time to check it out right now, but it's a group of Christians who write sf, fantasy, or horror.



www.lostgenreguild.com/



I'm not going to do Nano, because I know how I can be around new forums. I am working on a story, though, and hope to get lots written this month. ^^

Allonsy