NaNoWriMo – Info, Calendars, Word Count Trackers

NaNoWriMo 2011 (But applies to any year:)

Yes, I know I’m late with this. This post is just a quick note for people looking for info. I’m not going to get into all of the details of what NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is all about, I’ll assume you know or at least have access to Wiki…which states:

National Novel Writing Month (also known as NaNoWriMo) is an annual internet-based creative writing project which challenges participants to write 50,000 words of a new novel between November 1 and November 30.

And yes, there are a few rules as well:

Participants’ novels can be on any theme and in any genre, and in any language. Everything from fanfiction, which uses trademarked characters, to novels in poem format, and even metafiction is allowed…Starting at midnight November 1, novels must reach a minimum of 50,000 words before 11:59:59 PM on November 30, local time. Planning and extensive notes are permitted, but no earlier written material can go into the body of the novel, nor is one allowed to start early and then finish 30 days from that start point.

Participants write either a complete novel of 50,000 words, or simply the first 50,000 words of a novel to be completed later…Some participants set higher goals for themselves, like writing upwards of 100,000 words, or completing two or more separate novels. To win NaNoWriMo, participants must write an average of approximately 1,667 words per day…There is no fee to participate in NaNoWriMo; registration is only required for novel verification.

No official prizes are awarded for length, quality, or speed. Anyone who reaches the 50,000 word mark is declared a winner.

That’s pretty much it, and even those rules are a bit arbitrary in my opinion. Actually, if you want a real live, no nonsense look at the competition from a professional, check out Chuck Wendig’s “25 Things You Should Know About NaNoWriMo” – http://terribleminds.com/ramble/2011/10/04/25-things-you-should-know-about-nanowrimo/

Anyway, here’s some things that might help ya and keep ya motivated

NaNoWriMo Desktop Calendars

Note 2016 – some of these links are no longer relevant as they are for previous years nanowrimos – I updated the list with Margie’s 2016 Calanders

Zabé has created some gorgeous November 2011 calendars with the accumulating word count for each day of writing. It goes up to 50,000 words, but she says that if you have a different goal, she’ll make one for ya 🙂 http://zabe.net/blog/2011/10/nanowrimo-2011-calendars/

Dan also has some Calendars as well – His are more humorous in nature and more varied. He has some for just one week, as well as whole months – check them out here: http://surlymuse.com/2011-nanowrimo-wallpaper/

Since I only wrote this up real quick, I’ll let you know that a google search will easily find you many, many more. You can check the forum of the official NaNoWriMo site as well: http://nanowrimo.org/forums/nano-artisans/threads/382065

NaNoWriMo

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Margie seems to update her calanders every year – here’s the link to her 2016 calanders.

Margie’s 2016 NaNoWriMo Calendars

To request a calendar, check out my thread on the NaNoWriMo forums. (Link below)

NaNoWriMo Word Count Trackers and Report Cards

I always loved the word count trackers. These are Excel sheets preformatted and coded with all the nice little formulas to help you track your word count and your progress. There’s a lot of them out there and it’s easy to find an old one and update to the current year.

This guy went all out in creating his: http://svenjaliv.blogspot.com/2011/10/word-count-trackers-for-nanowrimo-2011.html

This one is traditional – just fill in how many words you wrote and how many hours you spent writing – http://svenjaliv.com/nanowrimo-word-tracker-spreadsheets/

I’m not going to get much deeper into it, just like the calendars, these spreadsheets can be found all over the place, try this search. I made this post because I noticed a lot of people were searching for nanowrimo and related info and finding my site. So I’m obliging them. I like being helpful.

I’m not participating this year, the last time I tried…I failed. BUT, it was an incredible learning experience – I wrote about it here – http://silenciobarnes.net/writing/failing-nanowrimo-2009/

If you want more info, or would like to know about some free tools you can use that may help you with your writing, let me know and I’ll speak on that as well.

r/nanowrimo

Reddit’s unofficial subreddit for those participating in Camp NaNoWriMo or November’s novel writing extravaganza! Please note that this community is not supported or affiliated with the official National Novel Writers Month organization in any way. This is purely fan organized.

Get to it! Happy writing 🙂

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