Nanowrimo, held annually in November, is a challenge to write 50,000 words in one month. The challenge is designed to fight against perfectionism and procrastination, helping writers get to the end of their rough draft.
Traditionally, during this time, a bunch of writers crowd into coffee shops, library rooms, bars, and conference rooms to write. This is called a Write-In. Because of the Rona, write-ins are not safe to do in person. Nanowrimo is encouraging participants to do virtual write-ins instead.
My Discord writing room, which is mostly used to encourage and help other writers, tried out a test run for a virtual write-in. Here's how it went.
We did a 2 hour write-in. The entire thing was done via text only, rather than video or voice call. No real reason for that, mostly I just didn't want anyone to feel uncomfortable.
For the first 15 minutes we chatted and waited for people to join. Next we spent 30 minutes doing writing exercises and giving each other feedback for them. The ones we did were taken and adapted from this blog.
Bad Writing - I did terribly with this one but everyone else showed a real talent for it!
Character Interview-
What's your name?
Who's your hero?
Do you have any flaws?
Do you sing at kareoke?
What's your favorite book?
What happened at the zoo?
I learned the most from the character interview. It helped me get a bit more personal with my newest character. Plus, it was fun to hear the answers for the other writers as well!
The last hour and a half was spent writing as much as we could and sharing word counts. I think we will do another one in October and 3 in November. If you want to join us for Nano, feel free to check out the Discord server!
I'm going to take up this challenge this year by splitting my word count. Ideally, 25,000 will go to my Tarot story. While 25,000 will be dedicated to Mercury Bonding. Though, secretly, I hope to be done with the rough by the end of October. If that happens, I will put the 25,000 for my companion story.
Good luck with your story, happy writing!