As our writers group + critique group here in Brooklyn ramps up for Nanowrimo, I wanted to offer Nanowrimo rules and also give you some encouragement for the journey. First the rules:

Nanowrimo Rules ::

1. Sign up via Nanowrimo.org
2. Pick a working title and genre after you set up your account
3. Write 1,667 words per day (average) and log your progress along with your friends — hopefully you can start or grow a local writer’s group like ours here in Brooklyn
4. At the end, you upload an encrypted version of your manuscript to prove you hit 50,000 words

If you’re working on short stories, you can always revise them and submit them afterwards here at the Showbear Family Circus.

And now for encouragement:

I’m over there at lanceschaubert and have done Nanowrimo since I had my first computer and an internet connection in 2005 (that may seem late to you, but check out my forthcoming novel Bell Hammers when it comes to the problems of rural poverty: it took my whole family pitching in for me to get a computer for college and took college for me to have internet).

Anyways, in 2005 the internet was a wild place. I registered for a Facebook account that year and GMail as an early adopter and have since deleted Facebook. I participated in Worth 1000 photo competitions and checked out Ebaum’s world back before it was filthy. It sounds weird to me to talk about any of this in a nostalgic way: some of it aged well, some of it hasn’t depending on the work of moral law on its founders and followers.

Nanowrimo, however, aged very, very well for me personally, the writers who started doing it, and especially for the nonprofit itself. It’s a beautiful community and has been the seedbed for bestselling and award winning novels. So the lit snobs who said, “Pish posh,” early on have eaten crow.

My history as a case study:

I’ve now done 12 novels through Nano and written over 600,000 words. Total including novels off Nano, short stories, blogs, articles, journaling, I’m probably over 5,000,000. So it has definitely improved my annual output. That first 120,000 word novel was my first ever. I wrote it while studying as a freshman at my alma mater Ozark.

I wanted to share that and to encourage you to give it a try. Though I haven’t finished most years, but I have in the fall been given a great sense of where I need to move next in my writing career and found the community essential for keeping me going. When you know you’re writing a novel alongside half a million folks, it’s quite beautiful. I bet there’s a group meeting near you.

I don’t do social media anymore — Facebook didn’t age well. But I still do Nano, Goodreads (both under Lance Schaubert), and Spotify. You can find me there or email or at the writer’s critique circle:

Think Coffee, Union Square
2nd and 4th Saturday
9:30a — 1p
Bring 10 minutes of reading