I was thirteen or so years old the first time I heard about NaNoWriMo from Writer’s Digest. There was something so exciting about trying to write 50,000 words in 30 days. I had already been writing for a bit at that point but I had never managed to quite write that many words, but that never stopped me from trying.

Every year by September I would remember that NaNo was coming up and try to plan accordingly. My goal was to have something planned and outlined by October to ensure that I would manage to have everything ready to start on midnight on October 31st which was always a great day to start (on paper). And even though I never actually joined any writing groups or meetups of people in my area that were participating, there was always something kind of exciting about the idea that other people were participating in this thing with me. The idea that writers across the world were joining in on this goal of writing something new, 50,000 words of it in 30 days.

It took me years before I managed to actually write that 50k in 30 days, but it was hugely exciting once I did.

NaNo (the site) is officially over. Rightfully so apparently, given everything that was going on in the last few years of it’s life. I know that it was often especially frustrating for literary agents and publishers who were suddenly inundated with unedited and unfinished work in the month that followed, so I’m sure they’re not all that upset about it, and in a way I do feel like given the story of NaNo’s fall from grace it is—not the worst thing that it’s gone.

So much of the experience of writing can feel very isolating and lonely. So much of writing is you on your own, writing something out by hand or typing on the computer, and its easy to feel by yourself. Sure you have your characters that your working on and the world that you’re in, but you’re still by and large on your own.

Even though I never participated in the meetups online or otherwise, even though I was more of a lurker than anything, knowing that there were people working on a novel at the same time as you, concurrent to you feels like something cool. You feel like you’re less alone and it’s strangely nice.

Now that it’s October which is usually the run up to NaNo and prep month for those who do participate I’ve found myself wondering what comes next?

Now obviously NaNo as an organization doesn’t have to exist for any and all of us to write together. It doesn’t have to exist for you to spend a month where you work on a new project, it doesn’t even have to be in November.

There are also several months that aren’t November that have 30 days in them. April, June, September, and November all have 30 days in them, and of them April or September is I would argue a more ideal candidate considering that November is often too close to the holidays and therefore too easy to get distracted during. While it’s great that November is both right after Halloween and therefore in the midst of Fall (making it certainly a preferred time to write in my book in many ways) more often than not one of my great frustrations with NaNo being in November is that I often found myself forgetting that November was coming up and being completely blindsided by it year after year. In fact I often forgot to participate because November always seemed to skate by far faster than anticipated.

The point of writing 50,000 words in a month is that it’s supposed to be fun, but at the same time—I can’t help but feel like there’s always a bit of stress that comes with the process. There’s always a bit of exhaustion that comes with the process and more often than not you find yourself ending November kind of exhausted if thrilled. In some ways writing 1,666 words every day for 30 days isn’t an impossible ask—unless it is in which case even your best efforts may not allow you to finish it.

I’ve been thinking a lot about the idea of a Write with me stream. Making it a point to use Twitch or some other service to go live and just focus on writing. I think it could be a lot of fun and it’s a good way for writers at any time of year to feel like they have a similar camaraderie to what you feel during NaNo. I haven’t quite decided if that’s something that I’m going to pursue as of yet but it’s tempting. What do you think? Do you have plans with a writing group or even writing friends that you want to go to this month so that you can all work on a project together? Do you ever participate in live write with me streams and how do you like them? I know they tend to write in little sprints of twenty or so minutes I believe, (something like the Pomodoro method) which I’ve had mixed success with personally—but I would love to know how you find such things and what your plans are for November. I’ve heard there is just going to be a regular novel month type of thing unrelated to Nano which is nice and I may or may not decide to participate in that, after all I do have a project I’m working on and writing 50k would be great.