The Basics

Yes! Just set a word-count goal as a team and update your individual author pages with that goal. When your novel is finished, each team member can validate the novel to win.

If you're not sure of your target, try our new Word-Count Goal Calculator!

You don't have to follow the calculator's suggestion, but make sure your goal is high enough to be challenging (but not impossible) to reach.

Don't hesitate to contact us!

For one month, you get to lock away your inner editor, let your imagination take over, and just create!

Some of the skills NaNoWriMo builds:

Your word-count goal is a threshold, not a limit. Keep going! Set a new, more-challenging goal and continue your story.

We do not read or store any of the novels submitted. We're just here to motivate and make sure you've met your goal for the month!

You can continue to add to your word count until 11:59 PM on November 30.

You win NaNoWriMo by writing to your word-count goal by midnight on November 30.

Every year, there are many, many winners. There are no "Best Novel" or "Quickest-Written Novel" awards given out. All winners will get an official "Winner" web badge and certificate, and bragging rights for the rest of their lives.

Sure! We love novels in any language.

We define a novel as "a lengthy work of fiction." Beyond that, we let you decide whether what you're writing falls under the heading of "novel."

In short: If you believe you're writing a novel, we believe you're writing a novel, too.