Why I Do NaNoWriMo

It’s just over a week until November, which means that it’s jut over a week until NaNoWriMo begins. I’ve spent the past month and a bit feverishly working to get my previous project finished up, as well as planning out what I’m going to be writing over the course of November. I discovered NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month back in 2011. I’d been writing for a couple of years, but hadn’t really got all that far. The idea of writing an entire 50k word month over the course of 30 days was so exciting, I jumped right into the challenge  with one day’s preparation, no plot, and no idea what I was getting myself into. Fast forward a few years, and here we are, NaNoWriMo 2019 and I have eight wins under my belt, over 2.6 million words written across all the NaNoWriMos and Camp NaNoWriMos I’ve completed, not to mention all the pages I’ve edited. NaNoWriMo is the absolute highlight of my writing year.

What keeps me coming back, year after year? Quite a few things actually. Firstly, there’s the challenge. NaNoWriMo dares you to write 50k words in a month. And I love a good challenge. Having a goal like this to aim for, reach, and possibly even exceed excites me. I have a goal, a daily world count, my motivation soars, and my productivity gets a massive boost. I write all year round, but no month is quite as productive for me as November is, simply because someone is challenging me to see how much I can physically write in that time period. Which, as I have discovered, is a lot. You never really know how much you can actually write until you try something like NaNoWriMo.

Another huge part of what keeps me coming back is the community. I’ve met some of my best friends through NaNoWriMo. We write together, console each other when the writing is difficult, cheer each other on every day, and offer advice or ideas when we inevitably get stuck. Writing is such a solitary occupation most of the time, so to be part of a community and know that there are people all around the globe doing the same thing as you is amazing. The more times I’ve done NaNoWriMo, the more I’ve gotten involved in the writing community. I’m already planning what write-ins to try and get to, I’m chatting with my friends in our chat group, and I am loving every moment of the build up to November. It makes me feel so lucky to be a writer.

And then there are the books, the biggest thing that keeps me coming back for more, year after year. Almost every book I have ever written has been drafted during either NaNoWriMo or Camp NaNoWriMo. It’s become an integral part of my writing process, to hammer out those first drafts while the inspiration is hot and the words are flowing. Careful crafting comes later, when I edit and sculpt the story until it’s the way I need it to be. But NaNoWriMo, that’s when the first drafts happen, those first amazing steps into a new world and a new adventure. I get to the end of the month and no matter how hard it has been, how much I struggled to reach my goal, I get to come out the end with something new in my hands, something to work with. And that, more than anything, is the real reward of NaNoWriMo.

This is why I do NaNoWriMo every single year and why I’m coming back for the ninth year in a row. I have a couple of new books planned out and ready to write. My writing friends and I are hyped up and ready to throw ourselves into the challenge and cheer each other to the finish. It’s going to be an awesome month of writing, fun, and friends. I feel so lucky sometimes to be a writer.

But I’d love to know, if you’ve done NaNoWriMo before, what brings you back? If you haven’t done it yet, do you think you’d ever give it a try in the future?