NaNoWriMo: What's Your Goal?

I love National Novel Writing Month. It's a great way to kick your tush into gear and challenge yourself. The traditional goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words in 30 days.

But what if you already know life isn't going to cooperate so you can acheive it. Does that mean you should just ditch the challenge all together?

No way!

Set a goal that works for YOU. 

If something major is happening that will require the majority of your time and attention, then adjust your word count goal. Maybe it will be to hit 25K. Setting a goal and putting a word counter on your computer desktop, blog or website, will motivate you to take 30 minutes to get out a couple hundred words. If you do that four times a day, you could average 800-1,000 words a day. Multiply that by 30 and you've reached your goal! If that still sounds like too much, then adjust the word count.

If you don't set a goal, then you may put your writing aside for the whole month. Give yourself the opportunity to take on the challenge.

What if you just finished another manuscript and don't have another one plotted out yet?

Well, you have two options: 1. You've got about 10 days to do some plotting and brainstorming, then just jump in and see where it leads you, or 2. You can set your goal to edit, rather than write. That's perfectly fine.

The important thing about National Novel Writing Month is to be working on your novel. Whatever stage your in, set a goal to give you a kick in the pants.


So, what's your goal for NaNoWriMo?

Would you like to comment?

Taffy said...

I have three NaNo stories waiting to be edited so no NaNo for me this year. My goal is to polish my WWI romance!
THANKS for the post and making me think of my goals.

rebecca h jamison said...

Well, this sounds like just the thing for me! My goal is to get to 150 pages on my current manuscript. If I do really well in October, I might change it to 175.

The thing I like about NaNoWriMo is the whole idea of writing quickly without editing. I really need to learn how to turn off my internal editor. So that's my secondary goal.

Donna K. Weaver said...

My goal is to finish the book I have in mind. I don't doubt I can do it. I found out about NaNo almost 2 years ago when a friend told me about it. But it was too late for me to participate. I was still curious to see if I could actually write a full-length novel, so I did my own NaNo in January of 2010. And I wrote 80,000 words in 30 days. I was quite pleased with myself.

I will need to do at least 50k AND complete the book for me to meet my personal NaNo goals.

Unknown said...

I'm 30,000 words into a novel that I think will be about 80,000, so my NaNoWriMo goal is going to be to finish it off. I'm also hosting a contest on my blog challenges my readers to beat me in 'winning' NaNaWriMo.

Canda said...

I participated in NaNo last year, didn't finish but wrote more in 30 days than I ever had before! I found out a lot about myself as a writer--what's I'm willing to ignore and what I'm not and must fix immediately. Kind of puts the brakes on wild-abandon. My goal is to set another "Personal Best" by exceeding last year's achievement.

Danyelle Ferguson said...

You each have great goals! Thank you for sharing. And Michael, I entered your NaNo Contest. =)

Rachelle Christensen said...

I'm 33K into my new novel so my goal will be to finish it. I'm hoping to hit 50K by Oct 31st so I should only have about 35K left and then on to editing!
Great post. :)