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Write a Novel this November

One Day…

“One day I’m going to write a novel.”

Have you ever said anything like that?

What are the normal excuses? Mine were always:

• I don’t have the time
• I need to work on an idea first
• I’ll talk plot with one of my buddies first
• I need to do some more research

etc., etc.

Well, the one thing about the World Wide Web is more often than not, someone else has figured out a (possible) solution.

Nanowrimo – National Novel Writing Month

Nanowrimo is simply a contest system created to provide a tangible deadline for would-be novelists so that they can write (at least) 50,000 words in a month. Each November, they run a “contest” where entrants must submit a manuscript that they’ve written (in the month of November only) by the deadline.

If you hit 50,000 words by November 30th, you win. If you write less than 50,000 — or you quit — you lose. Of course, it’s not the end of the world if you lose, and you don’t get a one million dollars if you win, but the idea is to let you taste what it’s like to really dig in and write something substantial.

In fact, a number of “contestants” have used their experience (and manuscripts) from Nanowrimo as momentum to eventually get published. Cool beans, eh?

Right now, we’re 10 days out before the contest begins. And I’m seriously thinking about it. If I can come up with a simple plot, or polish up the two or three that I’ve carried from my comic book days, I may give it a go.

I figure it would be like staying up to the wee hours writing a term paper, except that it’d be 30 days in a row. I mean, to get 50,000 words means close to 1700 words a day, for 30 days. No easy feat, I know.

Scrivener – A Novel Writing Tool

To aid me in this task, though, I also found out about Scrivener, a writing tool that seems like it might suit my writing style.
I’m very non-linear, in that I often like to jump around doing different tasks, free-associate when I’m thinking — I always have different websites opened in numerous tabs, etc., and it seems that Scrivener encourages such thinking while at the same time provides an excellent set of tools and user-interface to help organize your story and story-writing-related information, be it notes, websites, photos, etc.

The creators of Scrivener are partially sponsoring Nanowrimo this year, and so that have a trial version of the software that will last until Dec 7, one week after the November 30th deadline, with the idea that if you “win”, you can purchase the software at 50% off. If you lose, you can still get 20% off.

I viewed their short promo video and found that the software seems pretty intuitive.

And yes, it’s a Mac application — although if you have Windows, their website even suggests an alternative.

Anyway, here are the appropriate links to check out:

• Nanowrimo
• A writer profile – read this story if you’ve been coming up with excuses for not writing
• Scrivener – Nanowrimo Trial Version
• Scrivener promo video

Stay tuned.