The Young Writers Program of National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a novel by midnight, November 30. The word-count goal for our adult program is 50,000 words, but our Young Writers Program encourages teachers and students to work together to set reasonable, yet challenging, word-count goals.
The only thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.
Make no mistake: you will be writing a lot of strange stuff, and some of it will be just plain bad. But that's a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes, to forgo the endless tweaking and editing. For 30 days, you get to lock that inner editor in the basement, let your imagination take over, and just create!
As you spend November writing, you can draw comfort from the fact that, all around the world, other National Novel Writing Month participants of all ages are going through the same joys and sorrows of producing the Great Frantic Novel.
In 2007, over 100,000 adults participated through our main site, and 18,000 young writers participated through our Young Writers Program.
So, to recap:
What: To meet your word-count goal, and write a novel from scratch in one month's time. You will be able to enter your chosen word-count goals in your profiles starting November 1.
Who: You! We can't do this unless we have some other people trying it as well. Let's write laughably awful yet lengthy prose together.
Why: The reasons are endless! To write freely without having to stress over quality. To be able to make references to passages from our novels any chance we get. To be able to mock real novelists who take far longer than 30 days to produce their work.
When: You can sign up whenever you'd like to add your name to the roster of budding authors and to participate in the forums. Writing begins November 1. To be added to the official list of winners, you must reach your word-count goal by November 30 at midnight. Once your novel has been verified by our web-based team of robotic word counters, the celebration begins.
Still confused? Just visit the How NaNoWriMo Works for Young Writers page! If you are an educator, visit the How NaNoWriMo Works for Teachers page.