Writing Month (WriMo) is a journey to write a story. From
first-timers to award-winning authors, join a community of creative
minds all around the world. There's no prescribed genre, no theme,
no plot but your own, no harsh reviewers, no grammar police, no
grades. It's only you, the page, and us: the friends you'll make
along the way. Every November, write 50,000 words in
30 days.
How to participate
Find your local community. Writing is more fun
when there's other people to share the times with. A favoured
activity is a Write-In, an in-person (or virtual) event where a
group of people meet socially to write, talk, and hang out
together. Communities will also have a trove of resources to
help you write and dream, and once November is over, to help you
edit and, if you wish, publish.
Get an idea. Whether you're a
plotter (someone who likes to meticulously plan their
story) or a pantser (someone who writes "by the seat of
their pants", without a plan) or something in between, to start
with you'll need an idea of something to write. Any genre is
good, including non-fiction, fan-fiction, and more. Make up
chracters, find a setting, and get ready to write the story
you've always wanted to read.
Pick a goal. 50,000 words is the traditional
number. It's the length of an average-sized novel. But there's
no real rules here: you can choose a smaller or larger number,
or even change your mind midway. 15,000 is completely doable for
the busiest of professionals, and some prolific writers are
known to write over 200,000 words in the month. If you write
long-hand or on a typewriter, you may choose to instead reach a
number of pages. The guideline is 450 words per page: 50,000
words makes for about 110 pages.
Track your words. We recommend
TrackBear to record your
progress and share it and even compete on leaderboards. Your
local community may have a private leaderboard for the event, or
other recommendations. You can also track your wordcount in your
writing software, a spreadsheet, or good old paper. To achieve
50,000 words in 30 days, you'll need to write 1,667 words
per day. It's a good idea to track not only your total, but also
how you've done per day, so you can tell if you need to speed up
or can relax for a while.
Write! Starting November 1st, write! Writing
every day is a good habit, but it's entirely okay to take breaks
or make your own schedule. The general advice is
Don't Edit. You can leave spelling mistakes and grammar
mishaps where they are. Characters with placeholder names are
totally okay. Don't know the name of the country your
star-crossed lovers are fleeing to?
TK Countryname is your friend (TK is a copywriting convention
for marking placeholders). If you need to delete a sentence or
paragraph, cross it out or set its colour to white instead of
erasing it, so it's still counted. The goal is to write 50,000
words, not have 50,000 usable words at the end of the month.
There's always editing.
Sprint! "Word wars" or "Word sprints" are short
timed events, often organised in a community. It's also a great
way to focus or challenge yourself to write. In a sprint, you
set a timer (typically for 20 minutes) and write as much as you
can before time runs out. Many Writing Months are made up
entirely of sprints, writing a few hundred words at a time and
then taking a break. You may also know of the
Pomodoro
technique: sprints are like that, but with others.
November 30th: You're Done! Take a break! Then
you can edit your book (if you want) and yes, even get it
published (or self-publish), or put it all on the internet, or
leave it at the bottom of a drawer ne'er to see the light of day
again. What matters is you've done it! Brag about it, have a
rest and relax, and come back next November to do it all again.
Here's
a 7-minute vlog-style video
of someone doing the event in 2018, which gives you a great idea of
how a typical Writing Month event goes.
Community & Resources
There's no one place that Wrimos hang out. Here's a bunch of places
and directories of places that we know about. You'll also want to
check out the #nanowrimo or
#wrimo hashtags on social media. If you run a writers'
community that does the November event,
open a ticket
or shoot me an email to get
added here.
General
TrackBear, a web app to
track and share your writing progress.
Writing a book not for you? November not a good time? There's more
out there:
Camps: in April and July there's two more Writing Months. These are
meant to be more relaxed. Pick a smaller target, continue an
existing work, or do editing work.
Rough Draft Challenge:
Youtube-based community and creative event (not limited to writing)
with tiered goals aiming to avoid the burnout and toxic energy from the
Winning/Losing/Cheating approach from NaNoWriMo.
Wrimo.nz is not affiliated to (now defunct) NaNoWriMo organisation. Neither is this page affiliated with any
of the other communities and resources linked above. The author of this
page hangs out in the NZ Not-Nano discord instance.