The NaNo News

Thanks so much to those who have already completed NaNoWriMo's annual young writer survey. I've taken a peek—okay, many peeks—at the responses so far, and have begun jotting down your ideas to improve our program.

Remember: You can still fill out the brief survey any time through January 31, 2012. Your voice will definitely be heard and appreciated. And, you'll get a chance to win NaNoWriMo stickers, pencils, t-shirts, or staff feedback on an excerpt from your novel!

Ready to get your novel out there? If you are 13 or older, check out the Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award.

The contest offers prizes for General Fiction and Young Adult Fiction, with grand-prize winners receiving publishing contracts and $15,000 each. And hey, a Wrimo won last year!

Each November, we try to make the NaNoWriMo experience a little bit better than the year before. In 2011, for instance, we improved our homepage and resources sections; added NaNo Stats, Word Wars, and several new forums; and made our workbooks available in hard copy.

Many of these upgrades were based on suggestions from writers like you. Make NaNo 2012 even more awesome by participating in this short survey.

We're having a sale! From now until November 18th at midnight PST, all NaNoWriMo items in our store are 20% off. That includes our First-Class Novelist shirt, 2011 winner's shirt, and plenty of other writerly goodies.

The sale is now over. Thanks for your support!

We just uploaded CreateSpace redemption passwords to all winner's pages!

This is your opportunity to get five free paperback copies of your novel. You'll have until June 30, 2012 to take advantage of the offer. See full details on the "I Wrote a Novel! Now What?" page.

We hope you've spent the last few days recovering from your epic month of noveling (after properly celebrating, of course). By now, you might be ready for your next steps. Behold:

I Wrote a Novel! Now What?

This is our annual guide to revision, publication, and new writing challenges for the upcoming year. You can also find support for these pursuits in our post-event forums.

You made it through NaNoWriMo 2011. Whether or not you hit your word-count goal, you've got a lot to be proud of. Together, the YWP wrote over 367 million words. And we couldn't have done that without each and every one of you.

Right now, we're manually verifying word counts and making sure everyone's NaNo-novel gets the glory its deserves. We're also working on a few things that you'll be seeing here soon.

Hello Wrimo,

Over 300,000 adults, kids, and teens have worked on novels during this year's NaNoWriMo. We're proud of that number, but today I want to talk about just one of those manuscripts:

Yours.

We're in the homestretch, folks. For many of us, it's time to turn on the creative jetpacks and catch up on our word counts. Don't worry!

Dear Writers,

By now your hair needs a trim, your room's a mess, and your Facebook friends are worried you're dead or in a monastery. At this point in a story, voices in our heads whisper that we're wasting time.