NaNoWriMo Is Almost Here!

Let’s talk about NaNoWriMo Prep!

Most of you who follow me on Instagram and here on this blog know that I write poetry and probably ONLY know me for my poetry writing (since I haven’t shared any other kind of writing since I was writing exclusively on Tumblr in 2012/2013) so this may be a little strange but, Hi! I also write novels! Or at least try to. Since my debut poetry book “The Tides of Me” is coming out very soon and I’ve been saying for a long time now that I’ve been wanting to share more. I figured let’s share more! So, yeah! Here is the “more.”

Anyways! Let me start of by explaining exactly what NaNoWriMo is for those who might not know about this incredible month long event. National Novel Writing Month is held every year in November. It was started by a freelance writer named Chris Baty in July 1999 with just 21 participants in the San Francisco Bay area and then in 2000, he decided to move it to the month of November “to more fully take advantage of the miserable weather.”

Since then it has grown to be an incredibly large and amazing community of writers! As per their website, there are 798,162 active novelists and 367,913 completed novels! This is awesome, right? It’s super easy to join this community too! You just go on their website and sign up! Once you sign up you will have access to their writer resources as well as the community. You can even attend local events in your nearby city or hometown!

So…now that we know of this is an amazing thing.. Let’s talk about prepping!

I have been participating (although, not very seriously or successfully…) in NaNoWriMo since 2008! Of course, I was only 17 years old at the time and I didn’t realize that although the idea of NaNoWriMo sounds incredibly fun…it is also very hard work. I have one completed novel which started with NaNoWriMo (although it didn’t end in November and took me a couple years to actually finish) and it truly changed my life; just the act of knowing that I could do it made me want to do it again. Though, I never pursued getting this novel published or have thought about self publishing it, (life got busy and my priorities were different then…) here I am again ready to write a brand new novel and hopefully share it in the near future!

In my prep for this year, I have branched out to see what some other writers have done in order to successfully finish a novel in the month of November and it’s been such a fun experience to research how all these other writers outline and prep! I will be using Scrivener this year (as I always have), although I did think about switching to Ulysses which is where I have my other novel currently stashed. In my research, I stumbled upon Abbie Emmons and decided to join her Patreon so that I could access her particular scrivener set up, as well as, her writing facebook group! This is definitely a big step for me as I tend to be a loner when it comes to my writing process as well as stick to what I know, but I would really like to write an amazing book this coming November. Especially since, I already have a great idea and have been working on the character outlines thanks again to Abbie! If you would also like to check out these things, you can do so by checking out her YouTube channel, as well as, her Patreon page!

I’m super pumped to try this new way of outlining and novel writing for this upcoming NaNoWriMo and I would love to hear about what you have planned/have been up to as far as prepping? Let me know in the comments below or DM me on Instagram!

If you want to join a writing group for the month of November to talk, share your ideas, get critiqued, talk about outlining and character building, etc, let me know! I have just started my own Facebook NaNoWriMo group for the month of November only! If you would like to join a writing group for poetry, etc, that lasts all year around you can also check out my Patreon here!