Hello everyone!
How is it going? Can you all believe that we have less than 10 days left until Nanowrimo?! I am starting to feel the excitement! To be honest I am also freaking out a bit!! (Just a little bit! I promise! Aaahhhhhhh!!)
For those of you who aren’t familiar with Nanowrimo, here’s what it is all about!
Na·no·wri·mo
ˈnænoʊ ˈraɪmoʊ/
A frenzied month where novelists and aspiring novelists take on the ambitious and crazy goal of writing a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. For more information, check out the official website.
Yup, you’ve heard me right. This works out to an average of 1667 words a day. When you think about it, that’s kind of the length of an English essay back in high school. Every day. Yup…
WHY DO WE BRING THIS UPON OURSELVES?!
That’s the question that I’m going to answer for you guys today. Maybe you’ve thought about but haven’t committed to Nanowrimo yet, or maybe you’ve just heard about it for the first time. Wherever you’re at today, my job is to convince you that Nanowrimo is just the thing you gotta do this November.
1. Challenge yourself.
In my opinion, there are two qualities of great challenges: 1) They are outside our comfort zones, and 2) With the right combination of time, effort and willpower, they are achievable.
The great thing about Nanowrimo is that it is ambitious and achievable, provided that we have the time, effort and conviction to make it happen. So, if we have a few extra hours each day, if we have The Next Best Novel ready to waltz onto the page, why not take the leap?!
2. Write that dream novel.
Have you always dreamed of writing a novel? Do you have a brilliant idea in mind that you just never had the chance to translate into words? Or maybe you are a seasoned writer and you are excited to write your next novel? Well, Nanowrimo might be just the thing you need.
I never knew that I could write a novel from beginning to end until I participated in my first Nanowrimo 10-ish years ago. Nanowrimo gave me the confidence that I can write a novel. Yup, we can write a novel when we put our mind to it.
3. Give your writing an extra push!
Alternatively, maybe you are a few chapters or halfway through a novel and hoping to finish it this month. Maybe you are working on editing or re-writing your second draft. Maybe you (like me) just want to write the first 50K of your next novel.
We are all in different parts of our writing journey. When November rolls around, we might not always be in the position to start the first draft of a new novel. It doesn’t mean that we should shy away from Nanowrimo! I’d say we can go ahead and modify our Nanowrimo goal in a way that works for us. Whatever your goal may be, go for it! You do you!
4. Abolish the internal editor for a month.
There is one thing that is the worst enemy to creativity. Nope, it’s not our day jobs and it is not our adulting duties. It is that internal editor that lingers in the back of our minds in various states of wakefulness. If we are lucky, she is asleep and docile, but she is vicious when she is awake, whispering lies such as “this idea sucks,” “wasn’t this plot device done, like, a gazillion times in the history of writing?” and “ugh, adverbs again, what did I tell you?” The presence of the internal editor is highly associated with the Blank Page Syndrome.
But for Nanowrimo? I’d say it’s time to send your internal editor packing. If our goal is to write 1667 words a day, the internal editor is not going to help with that. Get her to come back in December or January when we are ready to edit!
5. Write with the whole world.
Writing can feel like a solitary task. We writers are in our own heads, we see and hear characters that only we know, we imagine and build our own places and worlds, and our immense and daunting goal is to recreate it all on a piece of paper in a way that other people understand.
BUT!!! For the month of November, the whole world is writing with us! Not only are there the Nanowrimo forums, there are lots of writers in the blogging community. There might also be local events such as write-ins perhaps near your geographical area. Not to mention just that feeling in the air that hundreds of thousands of people worldwide are writing with us! If that doesn’t motivate us to get off our butts and do some major kick-ass writing, I don’t know what will!
A shout-out to Beth, Zoie, Sieran, Margaret, Haidan, ML Davis, JW Martin, Chelsea Vanderbeek and Me and Ink who are my fellow Wrimos this year! Good luck to us all and we are going to be awesome ❤
6. It’s a lot of fun.
Come on, what’s better to do in November than pursuing our dreams? 😉
SOPHIE LI 
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