NaperWriMo Wiki

Have you ever dreamed of writing a novel?

November is National Novel Writing Month, a free annual event helping to motivate writers to start and complete a 50,000 word novel in thirty days. In 2007, over 100,000 people worldwide participated. Nearly 15,000 of them successfully crossed the finish line. Last year in the Chicago Western Suburbs region (centered in Naperville) an amazing 60 out of 129 participants achieved winner status.

Our region finished 47th in the world (out of 344 regions) in total word count, ahead of Detroit, France and Ottawa (in Ontario, Canada).

The fun begins Saturday, October 4th, 1-3 pm at the 95th Street Library, which will be hosting a two hour kick-off event to give people enough time to successfully prepare for their November writing marathon. NaNoWriMo Municipal Liaisons will be on hand to answer your questions and guide the preparatory exercises. Two other October events to be scheduled will focus on different aspects of your novel writing planning.

Starting midnight November 1st, you can begin the actual novel writing. The 95th Street Library will host write-in events 1-4 pm each Sunday in November. All participants and their friends and family are welcome to attend the TGIO party December 13th at the Naperville Municipal Center. Come visit http://naperwrimo.org/wiki for local event information. Come fulfill your dream of becoming a novelist. See http://www.nanowrimo.org and send your questions to mliaisons -AT- naperwrimo.or

Frequently Asked Questions

• Q*: What does this cost?
  
• A*: Absolutely nothing is required. Donations to cover the nanowrimo.org website and administrative costs are accepted but are not necessary.

• Q*: What do the winners get?
  
• A*: A PDF file proclaiming them NaNoWriMo winners if they manage to complete at least 50,000 words in 30 days. More importantly, the happiness of completing at least 50,0000 words of a novel. In addition, Lulu.com has been giving winners a free paperback copy of their completed novel.

• Q*: 50,000 words in 30 days seems foolhardy...
  
• A*: Actually, it turns out to be roughly 1,670 words per day, which turns out to be manageable. There are some exceptionally prolific writers who produce four times that amount... but many just barely get over the hump. The NaNoWriMo website and online discussion forums provide a lot of support; and we are organizing some weekly meetings locally for participants to use for writing and discussing their work.

• Q*: Do I have to publish my novel?
  
• A*: No. Some participants share their novels with other participants for critiquing; a few participants have had their NaNoWriMo novels published. There are no requirements here.

• Q*: What about my privacy?
  
• A*: While you do have to provide an e-mail address in order to register, the NaNoWriMo forums give participants fine control over what information is made available to others. E-mail address and identity information can be concealed and the NaNoWriMo team has a strong privacy policy. E-mail addresses are not shared or sold and you have to explicitly sign up to receive e-mail announcements from the NaNo team during November.

• Q*: How do I sign up?
  
• A*: Sign-ups can be done through the http://www.nanowrimo.org website beginning October 1, 2008. The NaNoWriMo contest proper begins at 12:01 midnight November 1st.

• Q*: Who coordinates things for the Chicago Western Suburbs region?
  
• A*: We (Tim Yao, Melinda Pfeiffer-Borucki, and Katherine Lato) are volunteer municipal liaisons for the Chicago Western Suburbs region of NaNoWriMo. We are enthusiastic participants of previous NaNo's who want to help others find the joy of completion that we've found. We organize the kick-off writing session, weekly writing sessions and the TGIO party at the end.

If you have any questions or suggestions, please feel free to contact us at mliaisons -AT- naperwrimo.org