Saturday, December 04, 2010

What to do after NaNoWriMo

Writing in the Sky by Shinichi Maruyama
If you found a month madly dedicated to one project exhilarating amidst the exhaustion :-) there are more challenges throughout the year, some lasting a month, some a week, some 3 days, some 24 straight hours. :-) (The NaNoWriMo folks aren't affiliated with any of these except Script Frenzy.)

From the I Wrote a Novel, Now What? page at the NaNoWriMo site which might have more challenges added throughout the year (plus a few free contests). (For readers in the future, if you've stumbled across this page during November, the link probably won't work. A fresh page will go up early December.)

December
NaNoFiMo.org - National Novel Finishing Month (December). Goal: 30,000 words.
De-PlotWriMo - Plot Writing Month (December). Goal: Refine the plot arc of your first draft.

Varies or throughout the year
NaBloPoMo - National Blog Posting Month (Year-Round). Goal: Post every day for a month.
WriYe - (Year-Round). Goal: Set a word-count goal for the year and work towards it between January 1 and December 31.
48 Hour Film Project - (Varies; operates via tours around the USA, lasts 48 hours). Goal: Create a short film in 48 hours.
SciFiWriMo - Science Fiction Writing Month (Year-Round). Goal: choose a target word count and reach it in a month, writing sci-fi or fantasy.
750 Words (Year-Round). Goal: write 750 words a day. Includes month-long challenges.

January
JanNoWriMo - Goal: Write either 50k or your own word-count goal in January.

February
FAWM - February Album Writing Month (February). Goal: Write 14 original songs in a month.

March
NaNoEdMo - National Novel Editing Month (March). Goal: Commit to 50 hours of novel editing.

April
Script Frenzy - NaNoWriMo's sister challenge (April). Goal: Write a 100-page screenplay, stage play, comic book, or set of TV scripts in April.
RePoWriMo - Refrigerator Poetry Writing Month (April). Goal: Write poetry using only refrigerator poetry magnets.
April Fool's - (April). Goal: Set a word-count goal for yourself and fulfill it by the end of the month.

May
National Picture Book Writing Week - (First week of May). Goal: Write 7 picture books in 7 days.
NEPMo - National Epic Poetry Month (May). Goal: Write 5,000 lines epic poem in May.
SoFoBoMo - Solo Photo Book Month (Between May first and June 31). Goal: Create a solo photo book within 31 days.
Story A Day - (Throughout May). The only rules: Write a story a day. Finish them. Note from me: this could easily be harder than NaNo if your stories are more than 1667 words each! :-) If you'd like to keep word count under control you might want to check out the various forms of Flash fiction.

June
ComiKaze - Create a 24 page comic in 24 hours. Participants pages are posted at the Pulp Faction forums.
WriDaNoJu - Write a Damn Novel in June (June). Goal: Write 50K in the 30 days of June. It's perfectly situated six months from November so you have optimum time to prepare for WriDaNoJu and NaNoWriMo.
SoCNoC - Southern Cross Novel Challenge (June). Goal: Write 50,000 words of fiction.

July
JulNoWriMo - July Novel Writing Month (July). Goal: 50,000 words for a new or unfinished manuscript.

August
AugNoWriMo - August Novel Writing Month (August). Goal: Write a novel in one month.

September
3-Day Novel Contest - (September). Goal: Write a novel in three days. They've been doing this since 1977. So cool!
SeptNoWriMo - September Novel Writing Month (September). Goal: Set a word-count goal and edit, write, or edit and write throughout the month of September!

October
24 Hour Comics Day - (Date changes annually, lasts 24 hours). Goal: Draw a 24-page comic in one 24-hour period.
GothNoWriMo - Gothic Novel Writing Month (October). Goal: Write a gothic novel in October.

November
NaPlWriMo - National Playwriting Month (November). Goal: Write a play in one month.
NaNoMango - The manga alternative to NaNoWriMo. Either 30 penciled, 15 inked, or 10 completely finished pages of a comic book in 30 days.
PiBoIdMo - Picture Book Idea Month (November). Goal: Write 30 ideas in 30 days.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Thanks for mentioning PiBoIdMo!

Joyce Fetteroll said...

You're very welcome! It looks like great fun :-)

Kelly said...

I took part in Story A Day this past May, and it was incredibly edifying. It's small but growing, and it looks like they plan to do it again next year, too.

http://storyaday.org/

Thought you might like to know. I really appreciate this site, BTW.

Joyce Fetteroll said...

Thank you! Glad you like the site :-)

And thank you for the link. I've added it. I could definitely benefit from writing short stories to learn how to write short! :-)

Unknown said...

Joyce, this is excellent. Thank you!

Eysiel said...

I'm doing FebNoWriMo this year, as I did NaNoWriMo and got hooked. My word count was only 31k, but I'm only twelve, so...I guess it isn't a big deal.

Joyce Fetteroll said...

I'd say 31K at 12 is awesome! My daughter started at 14 and barely managed 50K with loads of tears throughout the month. (Not from me pushing! That would be a good way to kill anyone's love of writing. Her pushing herself. She was determined to finish.)

She's 19 now and breezed through with 120,000. :-) (While I still struggled with 50,000 ;-)

Good luck with FebNoWriMo! :-)

Julie at StoryADay.org said...

Thanks for the plug for Story A Day!

It definitely does pay to plan a few Flash Fiction or Twitter Tales days! Or write to a theme.

What a great resource this page is. Bookmarked!