This week: NaNoWriMo Is Coming Edited by: Jeff  
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"You never know what you can do until you try,
and very few try unless they have to."
-- C.S. Lewis
About The Editor: Greetings! My name is Jeff and I'm one of your regular editors for the Noticing Newbies Official Newsletter! I've been a member of Writing.com since 2003, and have edited more than 350 newsletters across the site during that time. If you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact me via email or the handy feedback field at the bottom of this newsletter! 
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NANOWRIMO IS COMING
I usually wait until my October newsletter to do an editorial about NaNoWriMo, but it occurred to me that with something as daunting as writing an entire book in the span of just thirty days, it might be a topic worth visiting more than just a few days from the start date.
If you've been around WDC or any other writing community for any length of time, you're probably familiar with NaNoWriMo (an acronym for National Novel Writing Month), the annual challenge in November to write a 50,000+ word novel. Over the years the definition of a "novel" and what qualifies for the challenge varies. Some people write nonfiction. Others write short stories. Still others add or revise works in progress. Regardless of your personal definition, the general consensus is that it has to be new words (i.e., no revisions or simply reworking/retyping something that's already been written), written between 12:00am on November 1st and 11:59pm on November 30th.
This will be my fourteenth consecutive attempt at NaNoWriMo, and I'm hoping to cross the finish line for the fifth time. Over the past nearly decade and a half, I've learned a number of things about this challenge, not the least of which is that you have to go into it with a plan. Starting cold on November 1st has not historically worked out well, at least not for me.
That is not to say that you have to be a plotter, and meticulously outline and develop character bios and think through character arcs and themes in advance. Some writers just don't write that way. But very few writers I know are able to completely start from scratch and conjure words for a project they haven't even thought about or mulled over in advance.
And that's where this newsletter comes in.
You're not getting this editorial with only a few precious days to consider your options. Instead, you're getting this newsletter exactly 40 days before the start of NaNoWriMo. That's plenty of time to think about your work in whatever way your process dictates. Start your musing, or your outlining, or your jotting down of ideas today. If you want to be able to look back on November 30th and say, "I crossed the finish line and wrote those 50,000 words," the time to start is today.
If you're the kind of person who benefits from structure and planning when you write, I highly recommend spending October participating in:
If you're the kind of person who benefits from accountability and/or friendly competition while you write, I highly recommend spending November participating in:
Whether you choose to participate in these activities or not, seriously start thinking about your approach to NaNoWriMo today. That doesn't mean you have to have it all figured out on November 1st, but experience has taught me that having at least some things figured out before November 1st is the way to sustain your energy and efforts to get you across that finish line.
Some people may not be competing in NaNoWriMo and that's okay too, but if you've ever wanted to give it a try, or are needing a little motivation to finally get to work on that longer piece of writing you've been meaning to get around to, consider giving NaNoWriMo a try. And if you're going to give NaNoWriMo a try... you have forty day left to figure out how to tackle it and give yourself the best chance possible of crossing that finish line.
Until next time,
Jeff
If you're interested in checking out my work:
"Blogocentric Formulations"
"New & Noteworthy Things"
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This month's official Writing.com writing contest is:
I also encourage you to check out the following items:
EXCERPT: When I think about it now, I reckon Harry and Lucile Wilson have to be about the most easy-going pair I've ever come across. In the time I've known them, I've never seen a single thing phase this tranquil twosome - that is as far as the usual, couple-based arguments go.
EXCERPT: Everyone is born hell alone. And dies damn alone. The cost of suffering is known only to those who live, or at least try. But the trick is to believe it's real, or to pretend to believe it is. That is how you survive. But in your soul you will feel the flames of Hell, and even much scarier things. You will bear the scars of your defiled soul. And what was Hell really like? It was the ladder down.
EXCERPT: This has been written by me in several different ways at very different times. But regardless of how it was written in the past or is written in the future one thing is clear. I am a writer and story teller. Sometimes a good writer sometimes not but I am always looking to get better. But the one thing that I know is as long as I don't give up completely I will always write.
EXCERPT: For the poor guy, who works hard to support his family,
and who struggles to honestly make a dollar out of 15 cents.
For the girl, who's isolated, lonely and miserable with a house full of kids
EXCERPT: Half an hour late. I swear if Nichols wasn't the best informant around, I'd stop paying her. Jesse Forster grumbled to himself, checking his watch for the fifth time in as many minutes. Raising his glass, he downed the last of the whiskey he had been nursing since he arrived an hour before, and scanned the bars patrons again, for lack of anything better to do. |
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Noticing Newbies: September 22, 2021 Issue [#10997]
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