What is NaNo? It’s the pledge of a few thousand writers to write and to write like fiends, all during the month of November. The goal is to write 50,000 words on your novel during this time. That works out to be about 3-4 pages a day.

You can find all the details at the dedicated website

For all you teachers out there, check out the site and find out how creative some schools are in finding ways to get their students excited about writing. They hold all night sessions (supervised of course), they hold their own contests, and so on. What a great way to encourage the younger generations to get excited about writing and literacy.

By the time you read this, the 2005 archives will have been locked down and removed in preparation for this year’s zany contest. 

Now don’t get intimidated. This flourish of writing is not meant to be perfect or in exquisite shape. Set your expectations right – know going into this campaign that you’re solely wanting to end up with a FINISHED first draft. That’s it. Turn off your internal editor and give allow the wild, crazy creator inside permission to be free - to simply write. There will be plenty of time later for the clean-up work.

Complete that rough, first draft by November 30^th (50,000 words minimum) and you get entered into their Hall of Fame.

Visit the site, now, but remember it’s limited in functionality until the new contest registration begins on Oct 1^st. They’ll be keeping the blog open 24 hrs a day until then.

It’s wild. It’s zany. It’s crazy. And it’s a great way to get us off our dream clouds and down to earth to the business of writing!

Will I see you there? Keep us posted on your progress!  And good luck!

Happy Writing!
Coach Darlene