Writing Programs (Part 1) - Nanowrimo

I did get some writing done at the beginning of last week before homework began to take over my mind. It's like every free moment where I don't have anyone to distract I want to spend doing work or else the future me will be disappointed in my productivity. It isn't until its Sunday that I realize how little I've done and how I should carve out just a bit of time each day to do it. At the time, when I do have that half an hour break, I waste it on the usual stuff like Youtube or movies. Even if I were to do fifteen minutes of writing, by the end of the week that would be almost two hours of work which is quite a bit.

We'll see if I can improve it this week.

What I am most annoyed with is not having my post ready for Monday. I have been doing so well I post these on the same day and I am scared that since I missed it once it will be so much easier to miss it again. Hopefully if I can get more writing done then I will be so excited to report back how I have progressed that I won't postpone writing this.

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Nanowrimo is a big deal in the writing community. It stands for National Novel Writing Month. Writers from all over the world attempt to write 50,000 words in the month of November. It isn't all aspiring authors either. One author in particular who participates in this competition is Marissa Meyer. She has said on her blog that she wrote her Lunar Chronicles series during this time.

Some other very popular books have come from this competition:
Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen
The Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern
Fangirl by Rainbow Rowell
The Forest of Hands and Teeth by Carrie Ryan

Now, this is a competition purely done against yourself so you don't win any prizes besides your self satisfaction. But if you are classified as a "winner", the site does offer you discounts on printing your novel.

One of the best parts of his program is the forum. People discuss plot holes, genre issues, basically anything to do with writing. It is full of writers who are supporting each other. There are so many other events happening at the same time. People host all sorts of things on Twitter. There is also the Camp Nanowrimo which occurs in the spring over several months.

I took part in this in my grade eleven year in high school. I succeeded, though I did start a few days earlier in October. To be fair, I deducted what I had written before November 1 from the tally so I didn't technically cheat. I even extended it into December because it ended up being around eighty or ninety thousand words. But I didn't like the story very much so I haven't touched it since.

While I loved the experience, I find that I am not inclined to do it again because I don't need something like this to motivate myself to write more. Furthermore, since I am in university there is no time to write in November. Perhaps when I have graduated and everything has settled down I can give it another try just to enjoy the community but that isn't for a while.

But I highly suggest trying it out if you are interested.