The secret of winning NaNoWriMo

Happy weekend Grinders, how are the preparations for National Novel Writing Month going? Share your progress or your worst fears in the comments below.

All of us, at some point, will experience some fear and anxiety when we look at the goal of writing 50K words in 30 days. Today I am going to share with you a secret that will save you from yourself, and the fear of quitting before you finish. The answer? Go to a kick-off meeting and/or a write in.

To answer your next question, a write-in is a group setting where multiple NaNoers go to write. They are mostly commonly at a restaurant, library, coffeehouse, or lobby somewhere sympathetic to trying to write a novel in a month. Groups, usually a small handful to more than 100s can go to these organized events where you will sit and write for an extended period of time.

Some of the most common advantages are having word wars where everyone will try to write more words than anyone else, or just your neighbor on that comfy chair, in a predetermined amount of time. For example it may be a word sprint of trying to get 2K words done in an hour. It is amazing how a communal cause can motivate the masses to write their tails off.

Many of these events have food, give aways, and the best benefit is your ability to network with similarly minded people. Some of the best relationships can be forged over a a common cause, even if that cause is one you have to do alone. Spotter buddy anyone?

Most regions have dozens and dozens of write ins and you can find them on the nanowrimo.org site, simply go to the forums and join the forum for your region and find the write ins. They will have times, locations, rules, expectations etc posted on the forum post.

The best write-in of all is the kick-off party. For example this year's kick off party for my region is being hosted at a hotel by two local writers. The turn out in previous years has been several dozen people where most of them bring home cooked food for a potluck. There are some gift bags, give aways and the promise for networking opportunities.

I highly recommend going to the website now, nanowrimo.org, and finding your local kick-off party. Most of them are on the evening of Halloween (most encourage costumes and even have contests). You will have to do some planning to juggle trick-or-treat missions with your quest of writing a novel, but hey sugar never hurt a writer, at least not much.

I will going to my region's kick-off party. My challenge to you is to do the same, just make sure you bring your writing supplies for the midnight kick off of writing your book.

Get your grind on.