With the big annual novel writing month coming up there’s a lot of excitement and preparation going on.
The thing is, while doing Nano can be a great experience, it’s definitely not for everyone.
It’s overwhelming to a lot of people, takes a lot of time and energy, and is notorious for burning writers out. Most people quit well before reaching 50k, and among those rare few that make it across the finish line, many end up creatively exhausted and don’t write again for months.
Personally, I find that a slower more persistent approach is far more effective long term.
What if, instead of spending hours a day grinding out words in a blur of stress and exhaustion, you could write your novel in fifteen to twenty minutes a day?
That is my challenge. On November 1st, join me for a SloMo WriNo. Spend fifteen minutes writing, every day (or most days, we’ll discuss that in a later post) for a year, and by November 2024 you’ll have a novel completed.
And drop by the WIP Project discord. We’ll be able to encourage each other, do group sprints and share our progress.
More posts to come with all the details on how this will all work. Plus help on setting your word count goals, finding the time to write, and suggestions on the best ways to manage an outline and track your progress. Don't worry! It's going to be fun!
So I found this really awesome website that helps you organize your thoughts to write more effectively called “the Novel Factory”. If you’re anything like me (has all the ideas but zero ability to plan and organize the ideas into something useful and instead doodles and writes little pieces in no particular order) it’s really helpful! Totally check it out!
Writing in the summer, with camaraderie, deadlines, and accountability.
June, July, and August
Announcement is here, first post here.
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Ongoing:
Planning all the plans!
Last day of the month we make writing plans for the coming month. Post is here.
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Ongoing:
SloMo WriNo, Write your novel in a year
Welcome to The Slower Moving way to Write a Novel! Or SloMoWrino for short.
This challenge doesn't focus on getting you to write faster, but on developing a solid writing habit, and writing your novel in a more relaxed way.
This project is run by Maree and the first post is here.
You can subscribe to the #slomowrino tag to make sure you see all the posts here, or subscribe to Maree's substack.
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The projects through the years:
2025:
May and June 2025:
Sunday, May 4 until Sunday, June 29 2025.
Daily writing, set your own goal, make a post about hitting your goal, get a star. Post is here.
Getting to know your story (through writing it)
A special writing event for discovery writers. Masterpost is here. Here is the last post with links to all the advice. You can still follow along with these posts at your own pace.
Write your novel in 2024 2025
Slow and steady, write and finish your novel this year.
The masterpost is here, or start here at the first post and go through the tag #slomowrino. Subscribe to the substack to get everything in one place
2024:
Write 40k in 42 days
Start: 4th of August 2024
End: 14th of September 2024
40k First post is here.
Write a short story in 60 days
Write and finish a short story to publish yourself or submit it to traditional publishers.
The start post is here and the tag is #60daysshortstory. this project is done, but you can still use the resources.
2023:
Fall of 2023, the begin of SloMoWriNo https://www.tumblr.com/the-wip-project/736076610461138944/slomo-wrino-master-post
Spring 2023, the start with a special writing docket to download: https://the-wip-project.tumblr.com/post/711609740849037313/the-wip-project-2023
2022:
Here’s the masterpost for 2022’s 90 days to first draft: https://the-wip-project.tumblr.com/post/676795295564234752/the-wip-project-2022-masterpost
2021:
100 days of writing. The tag is here, and here are four posts I find especially notable about The Heroine's Journey by Gail Carriger:
Two short projects in this year. https://the-wip-project.tumblr.com/post/190175623889/the-wip-project-2020 and https://the-wip-project.tumblr.com/post/627604336988618752/im-so-busy-are-you-busy-too-i-was-trying-to
Note how I keep pushing for accountability posts. I'm convinced that accountability posts are the key to getting shit done, but very few people actually do it.
2019:
Where it all started, complete with a sign-up form and prizes. The prizes made everything extremely stressful for me, so I'm not doing that again 😂😂😂. https://the-wip-project.tumblr.com/post/185566159309/the-wip-project-2019
A Year of Finishing Novels: Special Guest Post from Jacob M. Appel
A Year of Finishing Novels: Special Guest Post from Jacob M. Appel #writinglife #writingcommunity #amwriting #motivation #priorities #authors
Though we are in the throws of National Poetry Writing Month and the A to Z Challenge, the theme this year for Experience Writing is A Year of Finishing Novels, and I need to get back to mine. To rekindle my motivation and hopefully yours, we have a very special guest post from author Jacob M. Appel whose new novel, Shaving with Occam, came out this January.
Jacob M. Appel
Jacob M. Appel is an…
Some thoughts for people who aren’t sure they have something “good enough” to write for NaNo.
So in my NaNo novel for this year my main character is a teenager and a witch just discovering her powers who meets a hot guy in chapter 2 and will probably end up torn between that hot guy and another, equally or even more hot, girl that she’ll meet in the second book which I’m currently planning. The big antagonist is going to turn out to be her evil long-lost sister and mom who are trying to raise her evil grandfather from the dead.
And that’s all fucking okay. Listen, every plot sounds stupid if you throw the bare bones of it out without any context. Yes, including literally every great work of literature ever. Because plot is honestly the least of most stories. It doesn’t have any bearing on how good the story is going to be overall. That’s all in how I write it and how interesting the characters are and how much I can get readers to care about them so that what happens to them matters too.
But even if all that is terrible and my novel is an unmitigated crap disaster...it’s for NaNo. It’s for me. And it doesn’t have to be the Great American Novel. It just has to be my novel, and that is enough.
Also the Great American Novel as it is usually understood and defined is basically a bunch of dudes jerking off to their own existential angst on paper and calling it art, like if you don’t think the main characters in those novels are the biggest goddamn self-insert mary sues ever then I don’t even think we can talk lit crit seriously until you get on my level. Thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
