I first heard about NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month) when I backed a Kickstarter for BYOK, a distraction-free writing device. It turns out that every November, writers everywhere take on a 50,000-word challenge—a whole month dedicated to writing! You can join in on nanowrimo.org, where you’ll find a community to help you stay motivated and on track. I’m not officially signing up this year, but I’m keen to use the challenge to write as much as possible in formats that feel easy and fun.
Obviously, this challenge is aimed mainly at fiction writers or those planning a book, which I am not. Not this year, anyway. Instead, I’m going to use this challenge to achieve three things:
Build a daily writing habit. I love 100-word challenges, but staying motivated without a specific target can be tricky. With a goal of 50,000 words in a month, I can commit to the discipline of regular writing.
Write mini-essays to deepen my knowledge. Writing about topics that interest me in a manageable format is a powerful way to retain information. By creating these essays throughout November, I hope to make stronger connections between various subjects I’m curious about and even spark conversations with others.
Test my note-taking and writing tools. I currently use Obsidian for note-taking, Notion for blog and essay writing, and Word for long-form pieces. This month-long challenge will be a great way to test whether these tools support a streamlined knowledge-management system.
To keep track, I’ll include my word count with each article. I won’t publish every day, as I may work on longer pieces, and I’m also on holiday in Morocco in the second week of November. I’ll try to stay off social media during that time, but I plan to keep writing, perhaps a holiday journal, or write up some notes, or just write something for fun.
Writing these mini-essays throughout November will help me develop new ideas and insights. I also hope it leads to some interesting conversations with others who share similar interests. I’d love to hear different perspectives on the topics I explore, catch anything I might have missed, and maybe even spark a bit of collaboration along the way!
I’ve been wanting to do this for a while now, so I’m pretty excited to get started today. I can’t wait to see where this month takes me, both in writing and learning. If you’ve ever tried NaNoWriMo or know of any similar challenges, I’d love to hear about them. Maybe we’ll even swap a few ideas or get inspired along the way!
Oh, and I’ve decided to use my own photos! I only thought of this just now, so today you’re getting a random shot of one of my fur-babies. Tomorrow, I’ll make sure to take something more on-topic.
November writing progress: 466/50000
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