It’s November 1^st. Time to put away the costumes and makeup (unless you’re a totally costuming geek like me), the decorations and skeletons and take a look at what November holds. If you’re a geek who loves to write, be it novels, short stories or even fanfiction (yes, I’m a proud fanfic writer) you might be working toward your first day’s word count in NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) is a fun event that starts on November 1^st and ends at midnight on November 30^th. The idea is to write a novel that is 50,000 words long in just 30 days. There’s no cheating by bringing in something you’ve already been working on. You are on your word of honor that you are starting from scratch on the first. To make it easier, most folks break it up into the daily word count goal of 1,667 words. Even that is a tough goal when you have distractions such as work, kids, health and life in general.

The rules are pretty basic. It has to be a continuous novel, grammar and spelling aren’t a concern, absolutely non-sense just to get your word count up is frowned upon and so on. All of it is done on the honor system, however, so they leave it up to you to keep yourself in line. They don’t limit to the genre and even fanfiction is fine to write. Whatever makes you happy.

I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo since 2007. The first two years that I jumped in I ended up falling behind in my word count goals almost immediately. Last year I decided to give it another try, this time telling myself that no matter what, I would make that word goal each day. I wrote every chance that I could. I even went to a couple of write-ins. (That’s where a group of folks get together for a few hours and do nothing but write on the novels, maybe even playing a few speed writing games.)

And I made it. I ended up with just over 51,000 words for the month.

This year I’m participating again. I’m determined! The piece I’m writing is even semi-fanfiction so my geek gets to show in this crazy competition.

So, how many of my fellow geeks are going to be putting on their writing hats and churning out novels this month? I’m totally curious and would love to have more writing buddies! And if you’re writing fanfiction, I’d totally want to know your fandom. 🙂 You can catch me on the NaNoWriMo site as: Rumielf. Browse the forums and you can check out what writing events are happening in your region. Totally go to a write-in or two if you can. They are not only fun but they will get your word count moving along faster than you expect.

Written by: Elf Writer