It's November. Which means that if you're an aspiring writer or even an established one, today is the first day of the rest of your first draft. It's National Novel Writing Month. (yes, you can start and finish at any part of the month.)

What is National Novel Writing Month?

According to the NaNoWriMo website,

National Novel Writing Month began in 1999 as a daunting but straightforward challenge: to write 50,000 words of a novel in thirty days. Now, each year on November 1, hundreds of thousands of people around the world begin to write, determined to end the month with a first draft. They enter the month as elementary school teachers, mechanics, or stay-at-home parents. They leave novelists.

So yeah. The idea is that if you have ever said that you want to write a novel of any genre, for the next 30 days, you'll begin the no pressure action of sitting in front of your writing method of choice, writing roughly 1600 words per day until you get to 50,000 words (you can keep going of course). It happens every year. To date, I've participated in 4 NaNoWriMo challenges, completed 2 challenges successfully and have gone on to publish two of the three novels in my ongoing speculative fiction series.

Courtesy of EnvyMcKee.com

There's a whole system in place to help your process.

When you sign up on the website, there's a place to add your novel title, a spec cover and a synopsis of what your prospective novel is about.

There's are writing groups you can join based on where you live.

NaNoWriMo/Envy McKee

There's also a place to add your word count progress.

NaNoWriMo/Envy McKee

As you complete daily challenges, you earn progress badges--which is fun.

NaNoWriMo/Envy McKee

When you complete your word count challenge, you get actual fanfare and "finisher" prizes and of course get to bask in the glow of having at least 50,000 words of a first draft of your first or second or third or fourth novel (in my case) under your proverbial belt. Plus, it's a really cool way to challenge yourself to do something you've always wanted to do.

Canva/envy McKee

According to the NaNoWriMo website:

NaNoWriMo is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that provides the structure, community, and encouragement to help people use their voices, achieve creative goals, and build new worlds—on and off the page. We’re also proud to be a majority community-funded charity.