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It’s that time again!
Yes, it’s November, when thousands of writers will commit to NaNoWriMo, NaBloPoMo, or some other form of daily wordcount goal. But if you’re like our staff here at YeahWrite, you’ve got a lot of life to live in November, too, and maybe you’re just a *little* nervous that committing to a single huge goal like that is going to lead to you being singularly and hugely disappointed in yourself when December 1 rolls around.
That’s why YeahWrite is hosting NaNoDoMore this year. It’s like a little scavenger hunt for your writing.
30 days, 30 goals, but only because that’s a convenient number (I promise you will not be writing a novel in a day). Do any number of the goals. Do as many or as few on a given day as you want to and as you’ve got room for in your life. If big wordcounts are your thing, we’ve got you covered. If you want one or two achievable goals? We’ve got your back.
But Do More. Do something new this month. Stretch yourself a little. There’s no prize for doing the most or the least, although we’ve got badges for you because everybody loves a badge, right?
There’s a Google form at the bottom of this page so you can let us and everyone else know how you did. The first time you fill in the form, it will send you a link that you can visit at any time to check off more boxes! (We love check boxes.)
You can use this handy PDF to keep track on your own and then plug everything into the Google form on the very last day.
And we’ve even made a special grid if you want to blog about how it’s going. Normal YeahWrite rules? OUT THE WINDOW. No badge if you don’t wanna, or you can slap the DoMore badge on there if you like. No so what needed. Write a listicle. Navel gaze. Take lots of pictures. Complain about how hard it is to write. We’re here for all of it!
This list is NOT in ascending order from easiest to hardest. What we think is easy you might think is hard, or vice versa. It’s not in order of “this is for your blog, this is fiction, this is nonfiction.” We want you to be comfortable zipping around in the list and just picking out the ones that sound exciting or interesting to you. There’s only one rule: try to do something you’ve never done before, or help someone else do that. Sound good? Let’s hit the list.
1. Submit a post to a YeahWrite grid. Not sure how? Here’s our quick-and-dirty guide.
2. Submit to a YeahWrite grid you’ve never been on (or the one you submit to less). Is fiction your jam? Try a poem or essay! Are you an essayist? Write a story or a poem!
3. Get a friend who’s never written for YeahWrite onto a grid (you can host them on your blog if they don’t have their own, just put a disclaimer about whose work it is so we don’t think you submitted twice).
4. Submit writing somewhere that’s not YeahWrite. Not sure who’s taking submissions? Try a site like publishedtodeath, which aggregates calls for submissions, or search “calls for submissions (your preferred genre).”
5. Submit writing to a market that pays. That’s right: get paid for your hard work. We know, it’s a novel concept. (see what we did there?)
6. Enter a writing competition.
7. Go to a poetry reading. Yes, put on pants, leave the house, and go listen to poets read. Bonus points if you read at an open mic!
8. Go to a book signing.
9. Write a short story or longform essay between 1,000-5,000 words.
10. Write a story over 10,000 words.
11. Share a link to a story or essay that you love on social media. Talk about why you love it.
12. Write (with permission from the author) a story based on someone else’s character or world. GET PERMISSION, or use something that’s in the public domain, like the Oz books (surprise!). Project Gutenberg has a huge library for you to draw from.
13. Update your author page with a biography and list of publications (This can be as simple as a list of your favorite posts with links to the posts. Don’t be intimidated by the idea that other authors may have more. There will always be an Agatha Christie out there.).
14. Organize a reading circle or book club (online or off!). Choose the first reading.
15. Beta read for someone. Don’t have a writer friend? Find one in the coffeehouse!
16. Revise an old story.
17. Write a book review on your own blog or website (link to the book if you liked it – maybe someone else will, too!).
18. Write a story in a POV you don’t usually use. Love that first-person? Try third. Or even second!
19. Host a reading – at your home or in a venue (many libraries have a free or cheap meeting room you can use), invite writers to read for about six minutes from a WIP or completed work. Or do this in an online group!
20. Co-write a story with someone else.
21. Write a complete story in under 100 words.
22. Do NaNoWriMo or NaBloPoMo (what? If you’re doing all that work you should get credit for it in as many places as you can!)
23. Nominate someone’s work for a best-of roundup like WordPress Discover, Five Star, etc.
24. Host a writing challenge: come up with a prompt, and invite writers to link their stories to that prompt in your comments, or make a linkup for them!
25. Write an essay you’ve been afraid to write because of what your family might say. (You don’t have to post or publish it. Just write it.)
26. Write a poem in a form you’ve never tried. Check out our writing help section for ideas and tutorials.
27. Find one interesting anthology that’s accepting submissions in December and post about it in the coffeehouse: what makes it exciting to you? Why should someone think about writing for or submitting to it?
28. Write your own “Best of 2018” roundup. Link to at least one story or essay published online from each month through November.
29. Review a book on Goodreads/Amazon/etc.
30. Buy a book for a child. It doesn’t have to be your child. If you don’t have access to a suitable child, ask your local school or prison library what books they’d like and make a donation.
Remember: this isn’t a checklist for destroying your life in 30 days. You’re not supposed to get through all of it. But why not try as many new things as you can reasonably fit into your November? No pressure, no shaming, just… a little NaNoDoMore.
We’ll be checking in with you all month in the coffeehouse, sharing our adventures and scary baby steps too. What’s the first new thing you plan to try?
Wanna talk? Link your blog posts, listicles, navel-gazing and complaints right here. There’s no moderation on this grid, beyond “if you don’t respect the dignity and diversity of our community we’re going to ask you to make some edits and if you don’t feel like you can do that we’ll take the post down, thanks.” So jump right in!
(Note: this does NOT count toward your NaNo “get on a YeahWrite grid” goal. Nice try.)
Loading InLinkz ...But I love badges!
Awesome, so do we. Here’s a nifty badge you can stick on your sidebar or tuck into your NaNoDoMore posts (remember, if you’re posting to one of our weekly challenge grids you’ll still need the badge for that grid!).
But I like Google forms…
We gotcha covered. Whether you want to fill this in now and keep changing your answers, or do it all November 30, here’s your fancy form. Your email address is only required cause you’ll need it to edit the form, we are NOT adding you to our mailing list without your consent, selling your address, or being in any way nefarious, we promise.