NaNoWriMo - OmIrwOnAn

Two days left to register for this year's NaNoWriMo, National Novel Writing Month.

It's become a global institution for writers: 50,000 words in 30 days.

By registering on the main site you get to send your word count for verification. 167,371 people have already signed up to the challenge so far, and I suspect a few more might before registration closes.

Earlier this year I accidentally inherited a Facebook writing forum which is now, astonishingly, pushing 22,000 members, an increase of about 10,000 likes since I took over. To help co-ordinate it, I started a volunteer drive, one of whom has set up an associated NaNoWriMo interest group. We've got about 120 very active members in there and it's been a real pleasure talking about writing.

I may attempt WriMo next year, but this year I'm going to see whether I can surf the crest of enthusiasm and finish Blood Rose. It's already over 70k, but I reckon there's probably about another 30k in it, which would make it my longest single work of fiction ever, topping Lucid at 92k unedited/85.5k edited.

On the topic of word counts, to achieve WriMo you need to write at an average of 1667 words per day, but Wendy Callahan came up with a brilliant idea in the forum. She asked whether anyone had tried 'Reverse NaNo'. 'What's that?' we asked.

It's this:

Start off strong, then there's less pressure for the rest of the month.

Here are the word count goals for anyone interested in Reverse NaNo:

Day 1: 3346 (It’s day one! Just do it! And you can and will!)
Day 2: 3216
Day 3: 3101
Day 4: 2986
Day 5: 2872
Day 6: 2757
Day 7: 2642

Week Two

Day 8: 2527
Day 9: 2412
Day 10: 2298
Day 11: 2183
Day 12: 2068
Day 13: 1953
Day 14: 1838

Week Three

Day 15: 1724 (Halfway point! After this, you’ll be writing less every day than everyone else! This is the time where you need this!)
Day 16: 1609
Day 17: 1494
Day 18: 1379
Day 19: 1264
Day 20: 1150
Day 21: 1035

Week Four

Day 22: 920
Day 23: 805
Day 24: 690
Day 25: 576
Day 26: 461
Day 27: 346
Day 28: 231

Week Five

Day 29: 116
Day 30: 1

Although, I think Day 30 really ought to be two words: THE END