How to Write a Book In a Month and Participate in NaNoWriMo

Celebrate Thanksgiving. Prepare for Christmas. Write a book. For ten years November has been National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a project that asks participants to write 50,000 words in 30 days. Writing a novel. Are you up to it? Here are some tips to get you started.

1. Visit the official NaNoWriMo website at Nanowrimo.org. Familiarize yourself with the process, and join the forums.

2. Begin planning right away. Leave the writing for November, but start thinking about your book in regards to genre, plot and characters.

3. Write your first sentence on November 1. To make your 50,000 word goal by the end of November 30, you must write over 1,666 words per day. Track your word count; don't fall behind.

4. Visit the NaNoWriMo forums when you've hit the dreaded writer's block. Get writing tips from other aspiring authors and become inspired by their work.

5. Engage your creativity. You have a lot to write and little time to write it in. Nothing is off limits. Explore tangents, elaborate, describe, and introduce new characters and side plots to keep the story moving forward.

6. Don't beat yourself up if you're not happy with the course of your book. Your goal's not to write a masterpiece; your goal is to conquer the writer's biggest obstacle, putting words on paper.

7. If, by the end of November, you have a finished novel, congratulations! You'd like to improve on it though, right? In that case, it's time to think about revisions. Check out National Novel Editing Month held in March at Nanoedmo.net.

8. If 50,000 words was a bit overwhelming for you, don't put your pencil down and turn off your word processor quite yet. You have a good start. Write a novel in two months.