November is National Novel Writing Month and writers of all ages can join in the fun. It’s called NaNoWriMo for short and if you meet your writing goal for the month you get a winner’s certificate to celebrate your achievement.

But for me, NaNoWriMo is all about the journey – the awesome time you have along the way.

Last November I took on the NaNoWriMo challenge and wrote the first draft of my MG survival novel, Game On.

I joined a NaNoWriMo Facebook group and met writers from all over the world. We had word races, and encouraged and supported each other to achieve our goals. It was so much fun. I learned heaps. Click on this post at my DeeScribe Writing blog if you want to know more about my NaNoWriMo experience.

NaNoWriMo has its own Young Writers Program

As well as a Young Writer Workbook which you can buy from their blog, they have all sorts of Helpful links 

With Young Writers’ Nano, you can set your own word goal for the month of November and if you achieve it, you win.

Goal setting is great, so is writing regularly. NaNoWriMo can help you get into the writing groove.

Recently, Alphabet Soup magazine interviewed a 12 year-old novelist about good writing habits. Here are his tips.

PREPARATION FOR NANOWRIMO

I’m the kind of person who likes to be prepared so I’m going into NaNoWriMo with a pretty good idea of what my story will be about. Here’s what I’ve done/am doing to prepare:

1. Decided on my main characters
2. Found pictures of people who look like my characters do in my head
3. Drawn a picture of a main character just for fun and to help me focus on her.
4. Interviewed my main characters to find out the kind of people they are, what they want and what could stop them from getting it
5. Done a brief plot outline and written my main plot points on system cards. I find that if I know where I’m going with my story I don’t tend to get wrier’s block, so I always like to have an event or plot point ahead that I’m working towards.
6. Created the world of my story with information about how it works, systems of government, schools etc and what this world looks like, and who is in it.
7. Tidied my workspace so that there’s nothing else to distract me from the writing project I’m working on for NaNoWriMo

If you decide to do NaNoWriMo, “Good Luck!” If you don’t have time at the moment, don’t stress…there’s always next year:)

If you have any tips about how you write or how you might prepare for NaNoWriMo, feel free to share them in the comments section of this post.

Happy writing:)

Dee