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I Keep Failing at NaNoWriMo and That’s Okay
The format is just not for me
When November rolls around each year, writers lock themselves away all month long. Their collective goal is to write a 50,000-word novel by the end of the month. This is NaNoWriMo.
For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and it’s a “nonprofit organization that provides tools, structure, community, and encouragement to help people find their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds — on and off the page.” Participants are tasked with the goal of writing 50,000 words in 30 days. On the website, writers can form a community with local writers and writers around the world, track their word count, and they have access to a wide variety of resources and learning tools.
I’ve participated in NaNoWriMo three times since 2013 and each time I can’t make the word count. The main reason is that I’m a slow writer and it took six years to write and edit my first full novel.
