You may have heard that November is National Novel Writing Month, affectionately referred to as NaNoWriMo. All over the United States, people put their lives on hold to dive into novel writing. They pledge to write 50,000 words in thirty days. They meet at libraries and community centers. They hole up at home. They commiserate—and buck each other up—online. For these thirty days, as they’ve done every year since 1999, fiction writers give themselves over to the tagline: “The world needs your novel.”
Fine for fiction writers. What about the rest of us? The essayists, researchers, journalists, and other writers of nonfiction in all its varied splendor? The world needs our words just as much!
If you write nonfiction with a passion—if you count yourself among the NaNoRebels—you need not feel left out. Since 2007, thanks to Nina Amir, founder of National Nonfiction Writing Month, November has beckoned to the rest of us, too. We get to bandy our own acronym: NaNonFiWriMo. I haven’t brought myself to say NaNonFiWriMo out loud yet, and I’m not participating in the 2014 challenge, but I like knowing that NaNonFiWriMo exists.
Encouragement for writers of all kinds!
I learned about NaNonFiWriMo when Nina emailed to ask me to contribute a blog post. Each day this month, she publishes a guest post to support Rebels rising to whatever challenge they have set for themselves. Yesterday, she published my post: A Fast, Pain-Free Way to Create Concise, Compelling, Less-Costly Copy. You can read the other posts on the NaNonFiWriMo blog, Write Nonfiction in November!
Have you taken the NaNonFiWriMo or NaNoWriMo challenge? If so, what did you gain? If not, have you put it on your calendar for 2015?