What Can NaNoWriMo Do for You? Expanding on Abigail Beal's Tips for Winning NaNoWriMo

In her article, Abigail Beal gives some “Tips for Winning NaNoWriMo”. Although winning is nice, it’s also important to know what to expect from your NaNoWriMo experience and what benefit participating in NaNoWriMo is likely to have on you and your writing, even if you don’t come out the other side a winner.

NaNoWriMo (which is short for National Novel Writing Month) has been happening every November since 2000. That year, there were 140 participants and only 21 winners. In 2005, there were more than 59,000 people trying to write a novel in November, although that still only resulted in less 10,000 winners. In fact, since 2001, the average percentage of registered users who actually come out at the other side a winner is only approximately 15%.

If you think writing a novel in a month might be for you, it’s good to go into it thinking that you’re going to be one of the people who hit that goal of 50,000 words in 30 days. But what if you’re not? Was your November wasted? Are you a failure?

No, you’re not. Winning isn’t everything, you know.

If you’ve ever even toyed with the idea of writing a novel, devoting one November to NaNoWriMo is a sound decision. You can learn a lot about yourself in thirty days of frantic novel writing, and I promise you that it will be a quality education. I have participated in NaNoWriMo three times now, and I have met the 50,000 word goal every time. Although winning is always nice, what I got from the experience was even more important.