Click, click, clack, clack. Goffstown High School senior Emma Boucher types her novel, Annie Brown, as she tries to make her word count for the day, 1,667 words. Annie Brown is a novel about “a girl who was abducted at age five by abductive captors and doesn’t find out until [the character] runs away.” Emma has been preparing for NaNoWriMo for a few months now, planning her novel and making sure it will meet the word count. 

NaNoWriMo, also known as National Writing Month, is an event that many writers like Emma prepare for. Participants will write a novel and/or 50,000 words in the month of November. Many writers alike come together and help each other out and support each other. NaNoWriMo started in 1999, and became a nonprofit in 2006 and promotes writing education. They even have events around the world in cities such as Mexico City and Seoul.

Another Goffstown High School senior, Faith Morely, has been using NaNoWriMo to continue writing her screenplay, The Sky’s Prophecy, a TV show about a woman hiring a bounty hunter to find her missing brother. She first heard about NanoWriMo from a friend at the time, telling her that she would be perfect for the challenge. During the month of November, she sat in Mr. McDermott’s room, writing, writing, writing. She works hard and diligently to make sure she makes her word count, typically over 1,000 words a day. For Faith, NaNoWriMo is a “nice clear goal to work towards” and “and gives [her] more motivation.”

To sign up for NaNoWriMo, go to nanowrimo.org and sign up so that you’re ready for next year’s NaNoWriMo. The best advice Faith has for other writers is to plan stories and to write it down, and “don’t try to force it right away…leaving it helps.”