NaNoWriMo

It's almost that time again... The National Novel Writing Month draws neigh!!! For those of you who have no idea what NaNoWriMo falls in the month of November, and the goal is to write at least 50,000 words towards your novel manuscript in the 30 days that occur in that month. While mainstream novels can be only 50,000 words long, if you write genre fiction like I do, that may only be half of your manuscript. That's why it's important to make certain you check what the industry standards are for your genre of choice. If you write too much, you chance no one taking it on because it's too long. The same goes for if your novel is too short for industry standards.

While keeping that in mind, I encourage everyone to participate in NaNoWriMo, because even if you don't fully finish your manuscript, you're then 50,000 words closer to your completed story! Yay! Some of the things that are available to participants are pep talks by published authors, a store where you can get some interesting writing related swag, and gadgets for tracking your word counts. There is also a section for finding other NaNoWriMo participants near you, for peer pressure or support or whatever it is that you need.

With writing being such a solitary endeavor it's nice to have something like this to encourage the inner writer. People can commiserate with you, scold you, encourage you, push you, whatever you need! Check it out, I'm going to!