NaNoWriMo

"Thirty days and nights of literary abandon!" For all you current/sometimes/hopeful authors out there...NaNoWriMo beckons. Put aside your fears and judgements and pick up your pens and laptops. Your inner characters and storylines are begging to be set free.

What on earth is NaNoWriMo, you ask? National Novel Writing Month. The one glorious month out of every year (since 1999) that authors (published and wannabes, alike) are challenged to write relentlessly (a 50,000 word novel) about anything their heart desires. The goal is quantity, not quality. In fact, editing is deeply frowned upon.

The point is to spur anyone interested in writing into action. Too often, internal criticism, fear and lack of motivation keep people from writing. NaNoWriMo combats these setbacks with a breezy, seat-of-your-pants attitude toward novel writing. If you don't suffer from such writing hang-ups, you should consider participating anyway. Here are some fun reasons from the NaNoWriMo website:
-To actively participate in one of our era's most enchanting art forms!
-To write without having to obsess over quality.
-To be able to make obscure references to passages from our novels at parties.
-To be able to mock real novelists who dawdle on and on, taking far longer than 30 days to produce their work.

Whatever the reason, you won't regret partaking in the exhilarating experience that is NaNoWriMo.

Additional Resources:
*Websites
Nanowrimo
Nanowrimo's Young Writer's Program
Meriiam-Webster - online dictionary and thesaurus
Bartleby.com - find quotes from literature
Dropbox - sync your files online and across your computers (in case you write on a variety of computers)

*Books
No plot? No problem! : a low-stress, high-velocity guide to writing a novel in 30 days by Chris Baty
How I write: secrets of a best-selling author by Janet Evanovich & Ina Yalof
The lie that tells a truth: a guide to writing fiction by John Dufresne
This year you write your novel by Walter Mosley