At midnight on Halloween, my fingers touch the home row keys of my computer, my eyes on the digital clock in the lower right of the screen. Wait, wait. Not yet. One more minute of ghosts and goblins. At 12:01 a.m. local time, November 1, I click the first keystrokes of a suspense novel that plunges me into the National Novel Writing Month annual contest. Often referred to as NaNoWriMo, this contest began in 1999 when Chris Baty challenged a few friends to draft an original novel in thirty days. Among the 100,000 writers who participated in 2008, I clicked more than the average 1,667 words each day to receive my winner’s certificate. Join me this year as I dive headfirst into a new novel.
Get ready! Register now. First, choose a user name and a password. It’s helpful to have alternates because your first choice might not be available. Go to National Novel Writing Month then click Sign Up Now. Customize your profile location for United States, California East Bay. Add a short bio, upload a photo or clipart image, select email preferences, and choose other options.
Get set! This novel-writing contest is like baking a cake from scratch. Assemble the ingredients – genre, plot and main characters. Make reference notes, handwritten or in a separate computerized file, of what, when, who, and where of your 50,000-word story. Practice writing 1,667 words in one day.
Go! Begin your novel on November 1 with a blank word processing page, fingers on the keyboard, ready for words to race onto the screen. While you wait for the countdown, disable the spellchecker! Errors don’t count. No paragraphs or formatting required. Word-count certification begins about Thanksgiving to upload and verify your total words. When you upload 50,000 words by November 30, 2009, you’re a novel-in-a-month winner!