Writing Events - Tumblr Posts
Want to participate but need smaller goals to work towards, because a monthly goal is a little too intimidating?
Try to write one short story a week, totaling 7.5k words :)
Successfully write four short stories over the month of November, and congrats!
You've now written 30k words in a month!
Despite the name of the event being "Novella November" , the goal here isn't strictly to specifically write an entire Novella -- rather, the goal here is to write 30k words in the month, doing so in consistent little chunks, to train your brain to be able to write as a *task on command* and not just when you've been struck with inspiration!
Your goal over the month of November is not to worry over the quality, reread from the start to edit or make changes -- save all that for later! Open a second document to take notes in, if you want, but your goal is not "perfection ready to publish", your goal is to write consistently, because what you are writing is just your first draft, and its *meant* to not be perfect!
That is what editing later is for,in fact *multiple rounds of editing*, and if I can think of some catchy names, I'll try to make a month themed on editing your first drafts from November, feel free to leave suggestions!
If anyone is interested in further writing challenges, I have another one tentatively titled "Public Domain Day Dash" where on January 1st, you pick a random, brand-new Public Domain short story, read it, brainstorm for one week, and then write 5k words a week for the next three weeks, totalling to a 15k word short story adaption of that brand-new Public Domain work, a kind of Public Domain "Big Bang" event to celebrate all of the new works entering the public consciousness!
Here's a WIP list of my ideas for a full year of monthly writing events!
If you have any suggestions *please* feel free to send them in :D
Not everyone has free time to do a full 30k in November in particular, and the key of learning to write consistently...... is consistency!
Writing in earnest for just one month out of the year doesn't give you much practice, does it?
But 30k every single month can be exhausting an daunting!
So, here's my WIP proposal....
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January [15k total / 500 each day]-- Public Domain-Day Dash -- On January 1st, pick a brand-new Public Domain work, read/study it for a week while brain storming, then spend the next three weeks writing 5k words to make by the end of the month a 15k word short story, adapting that PD Work into another genre / time period / etc. February [20k total / ~714 Each day ] -- Freedom February -- Black History Month. Each week, write 5,000 words each week celebrating freedom from tyranny in all its forms. March [9,300 total / 300 each day] -- Spring Equinox -- Each day, write 300 words based on the concepts of warmth, renewal, rebirth, changing of the guard, etc. April [8k total / ~285 per day] -- April Fools -- Each week, write 2k words of a comedy short story, to end the month with 8k words of comedy. May [6,200k total / 200 each day] -- International Workers Celebration -- Each day, write 200 words about a character in your line of work (or a nonfiction diary/article) and what you enjoy about it and how it keeps the world turning, or saving the world in some emergency, then take some time to relax, you've earned it! June [15k total / 500 each day] -- Pride Month -- write 500 words each day, either fictional or nonfictional, about queer history, pride, solidarity, or intersectionality. July [15.5k words total / 500 each day] -- Disability Pride Month -- Each day, write 500 words about your favorite genre, from the perspective of a disabled character (or a character with your own disabilities), and what kind of accommodations they use in their daily lives, without magically erasing their disability. August [15.5k words total / 500 each day]-- Alien August -- Aliens have invaded! Pick your favorite genre, and each day, write 500 words of that genre, with a plot that gets interrupted by an alien visitation! September [60-100 Pages / 2-3 each day] -- Scripting September -- Each day, write 2-3 script pages for an audio-drama, stage-play, or movie/tv show, to end the month with a 60 to 100 page script. October [20k total / 714 each day] -- Ominous October -- A choice of themes will be decided on before October, two options for each week, and everyone will write a 5k word short horror/spooky story each week, that all get posted on October 31st / Halloween
November -- Novella November [30k total / 1k each day]-- Write 1k words a day to reach 30k words by the end of the month. You can write a 30k word novella, use it as the start of a larger novel, write a series of short stories (such as writing a 7.5k word short story per week), etc. [30k total / 1k each day] December -- Don't Touch It December [6,200k total / 200 each day] -- this is your month of relaxation! Write just 200 words per day about anything you enjoyed / are proud of from the past year, and what you are looking forward to in the future! [6,200k total / 200 each day]
If you prefer to focus on just the longer challenges and spend the other months editing, we can also have mirror events each month for different ways of editing with community support!
Things like Beta reader swaps, doing cover mockups, localization help for those not writing in their first language, etc!
Oh, and here's some feedback already received--
(if you voted to you 'didn't like' or 'hate' any of the options, don't forget to send in feedback with your suggestions!)
For those who prefer not to write Scripts for September, a secondary theme / challenge could be either a "Fall" theme (whether that's fall weather or a fall from grace) or, and I think this would be really fun and go well with the Scripting challenge
September Secondary Challenge-- Write 500 words per day [15k total] as though you were novelizing an existing move/show. Imagine your work as a movie in your head, and ask yourself - how would you novelize it?
What scenes would be basic dialogue and summaries of the action on screen, and where would you offer fascinating glimpses into the world-building or characters that didn't or couldn't happen with a visual media?
Another option for yearly writing challenges would be Mirror Events for Editing and prep for the longer challenges!
Only want to work on a big writing goal in November for now?
Use September to brainstorm your story-- what plot do you want? who are your characters? What kind of themes do you want your story to have? Where is it set? When is it set?
Use October to Outline your story! try to decide how many chapters you want, and what you want to accomplish (either for the plot or characterization) for each chapter or segment. If you're doing a series of short stories instead of a novella, what do you want the plot and theme to be for each story? Are they interconnected?
Don't Touch It December means not looking at your finished November project for a full month, so you can look at it with fresh eyes in January to begin editing properly when you no longer have every word burned into your brain.
January can be "Just Read It January", where you take however long you need to sit down and reread your first draft from start to finish; no backtracking, just going through and reading from start to finish, taking notes along the way about things you notice that are off or need fixing,
then in February, take that first draft, duplicate it in a new document, and fix all those things you noticed in your notes! Once you're satisfied with your second draft, read it out loud or use a text to speech engine (like Balabolka, or any ereader on your phone) to listen to it out loud, share it with friends, family, or beta readers, and see what kind of feedback you get!
Here's a WIP list of my ideas for a full year of monthly writing events!
If you have any suggestions *please* feel free to send them in :D
Not everyone has free time to do a full 30k in November in particular, and the key of learning to write consistently...... is consistency!
Writing in earnest for just one month out of the year doesn't give you much practice, does it?
But 30k every single month can be exhausting an daunting!
So, here's my WIP proposal....
------
January [15k total / 500 each day]-- Public Domain-Day Dash -- On January 1st, pick a brand-new Public Domain work, read/study it for a week while brain storming, then spend the next three weeks writing 5k words to make by the end of the month a 15k word short story, adapting that PD Work into another genre / time period / etc. February [20k total / ~714 Each day ] -- Freedom February -- Black History Month. Each week, write 5,000 words each week celebrating freedom from tyranny in all its forms. March [9,300 total / 300 each day] -- Spring Equinox -- Each day, write 300 words based on the concepts of warmth, renewal, rebirth, changing of the guard, etc. April [8k total / ~285 per day] -- April Fools -- Each week, write 2k words of a comedy short story, to end the month with 8k words of comedy. May [6,200k total / 200 each day] -- International Workers Celebration -- Each day, write 200 words about a character in your line of work (or a nonfiction diary/article) and what you enjoy about it and how it keeps the world turning, or saving the world in some emergency, then take some time to relax, you've earned it! June [15k total / 500 each day] -- Pride Month -- write 500 words each day, either fictional or nonfictional, about queer history, pride, solidarity, or intersectionality. July [15.5k words total / 500 each day] -- Disability Pride Month -- Each day, write 500 words about your favorite genre, from the perspective of a disabled character (or a character with your own disabilities), and what kind of accommodations they use in their daily lives, without magically erasing their disability. August [15.5k words total / 500 each day]-- Alien August -- Aliens have invaded! Pick your favorite genre, and each day, write 500 words of that genre, with a plot that gets interrupted by an alien visitation! September [60-100 Pages / 2-3 each day] -- Scripting September -- Each day, write 2-3 script pages for an audio-drama, stage-play, or movie/tv show, to end the month with a 60 to 100 page script. October [20k per day / 714 each day] -- Ominous October -- A choice of themes will be decided on before October, two options for each week, and everyone will write a 5k word short horror/spooky story each week, that all get posted on October 31st / Halloween
November -- Novella November [30k total / 1k each day]-- Write 1k words a day to reach 30k words by the end of the month. You can write a 30k word novella, use it as the start of a larger novel, write a series of short stories (such as writing a 7.5k word short story per week), etc. [30k total / 1k each day] December -- Don't Touch It December [6,200k total / 200 each day] -- this is your month of relaxation! Write just 200 words per day about anything you enjoyed / are proud of from the past year, and what you are looking forward to in the future! [6,200k total / 200 each day]
If you prefer to focus on just the longer challenges and spend the other months editing, we can also have mirror events each month for different ways of editing with community support!
Things like Beta reader swaps, doing cover mockups, localization help for those not writing in their first language, etc!
If you're interested in doing Ominous October this year, first, vote here asap, and then start sending in prompts!
Once the poll ends tomorrow, (as I type this its at 70% "yes") , I'll collect prompts until September 13th, then we can do some rapid-fire, 24-hour polls to narrow down the winners, assuming we get more than 8 prompts submitted lol.
On the 13th, I'll make the first post that just lists out all of the submitted prompts, then we can do a bunch of polls to narrow them down.
Honestly, that ask really just shows just how easy it would have been for certain companies to respond properly to AI questions -- that is, to say, in a shorter post:
While I can't stop you, not only do I disprove, but I have *explicitly banned AI from this challenge.* If you acknowledge the rules of no plagiarism and no AI, and use AI to generate your 30,000 words regardless, you will at least be forced to admit to *yourself* that even if you didn't consider it as such before, you are, in fact, *cheating*. And, in doing so you are not only defeating the point of the community challenge, but also harming your fellow writers and artists every time you put more info in and get more info out of the Plagiarism Machine. If you decide not only to *cheat* in the challenge, but also then go on to proudly brag about how you used AI to generate your work, or post content like images that are clearly AI generated..... well, that's on you when you find yourself blocked by a few thousand writers and artists at once, isn't it? This community event has no formal submissions, so it is based on the honor system -- and that, of course means that when you choose to break the rules.... you'll feel it when you *break that code of honor.* Maybe you won't notice it at first, but you definitely will when you find yourself suddenly unable to interact with a few hundred accounts from cool authors and writers, who are all happily chatting and exchanging ideas -- all while your posts in the tags receive 0 notes because you don't realize it but everyone's blocked you....
Since a few people have requested a writing challenge involving poetry, what month would you like that to be in?
A poetry challenge would probably constitute writing one poem a day, since there's so many format and style options for poetry it would be difficult to make it based on word or page count, since poems can convey an extremely broad range of emotions based on formatting alone...
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Here's some more Ominous October goal cards, now for 2024! Please free free to make your own and share them in the tags! This only includes the weekly prompts, but if someone wants to make one for every single daily prompt, feel free to check the list here
Template for 2024:
For now, April is currently winning on the poll to pick a month focused on poetry-- I am kinda stumped on a fun, catchy, alliteration-y name for April involving poems 🤔
Please feel free to submit names, either in asks, or in the notes!
For months dedicated to community editing, beta reading, cover designing, etc, any suggestions?
Would you prefer it to be during Drabble December as an alternate / additional event, or would you prefer it in January, during the fresh New Year when its hopefully a little less hectic around the winter holidays?
Would you prefer January, February, or Both as community months for editing your Novella November work?
*note, editing events would not replace the writing events for these months (Public Domain Day Dash, Freedom February), they would just be alternate/supplamentary events for those who did Novella November.
For months dedicated to community editing, beta reading, cover designing, etc, any suggestions?
Would you prefer it to be during Drabble December as an alternate / additional event, or would you prefer it in January, during the fresh New Year when its hopefully a little less hectic around the winter holidays?
Oh, and for those not participating in Ominous October (see my pinned post for details), does anyone have any suggestions for ways people can begin planning/outlining their Novella November projects?
Does anyone have some Outline templates they would like to share ?
I always just.... winged it in the past lol, but I *am* doing some more in-depth planning this time.
An outline at its most basic should at least consist of :
Who are the characters?
Where and when is it set?
What is the Big Problem/Plot of the story?
Some additional details you can fill in from there:
Who is your main character? What kind of personality, abilities, and flaws do they have? What do they look like? Sound like?
If there are two or more main characters, how are they connected to the Plot?
If there are two or more main character POVs, do the additional perspectives bring something new and interesting to the story?
What are your characters motivations? Do these motivations change over time?
What kind of Conflicts do your character(s) face?
What kind of setting is your story set in, and how does that influence your characters and the story?
If you have thought of one, what do you *want* the main Theme of your story to be?
How do you plan on including this theme in your work?
What will start your Character(s) on their journey in the plot?
How will they have changed by the time you reach the middle of the book?
What is the climax of the work going to be?
How are the events of the book resolved?
Are all of the strings tied up for a standalone, or are there still pieces left unraveled, for a sequel to explore, or simply for an open-ending, intended to invite speculation from the audience?
I've received this question a few times now, so I wanted to emphasize again:
your goal for your writing in November should *not* be to have your final product on November 30th be a perfect, polished, ready-to-publish Novelâ„¢ that's ready to win awards and accolades--
Your goal for November 30th is to have 30,000 words of a First Draft of your Novella/Novel/Short Story Collection be completed.
A First Draft is just step *one* of the writing process, which is why I'm trying to help organize editing events in January/February to help writers find Beta Readers, localization language help, etc!
No matter how good an author is, the first draft of a novel is rarely what hits the shelves as the final product-- and when it IS the first draft, you can definitely tell as a reader, even if you're not yet on a technical level that you can't quite put your finger on why something seems off.
Your goal for November is not perfection, your goal for November is to write, whatever and as much as you can; quality comes in later in the editing stages :)
👋 :D
I saw a post on here and I liked the idea cut I can’t find it and I want to give credit to where I found it
It’s a writing challenge that I’m pretty sure it’s in place of nanowrimo or however it’s spelled because the creator is ok with ai writing
Basically you write 1000 words a day for 30 days so 30000 words for the month and I really liked the idea but can’t find the original post I saw it on
If by chance you know what post I’m talking about please share
April is now the winner!
What kind of name would you like for the event ?
Since a few people have requested a writing challenge involving poetry, what month would you like that to be in?
A poetry challenge would probably constitute writing one poem a day, since there's so many format and style options for poetry it would be difficult to make it based on word or page count, since poems can convey an extremely broad range of emotions based on formatting alone...
Here's a countdown timer you can bookmark/pin for Ominous October:
and here is one for Novella November:
I don't think Tumblr lets you embed things so I don't think you'd be able to actually see the countdowns live on here, but you can bookmark these tabs :)
Is there a prep calendar available? Like for the proceeding month of an event that outlines the weekly prep stages, such as outlining, character development, etc.
ooh, not yet, but that is a good idea! I was gonna make a post asking everyone what kind of things they would like to do for Outline October -- the prep alternative/supplament to Ominous October.
I saw that a lot of people on my poll here are pretty much planning on winging it, but if anyone has some more concrete, organized way to inspire Outline October, let me know!
While typing this up I opened up paint and threw this together "quick": (it was about an hour between distractions lol)
Hope you don't mind if I boost this! I meant to make my own poll for a similar question :D
yournovembernovel is a blog for those who want to write 50k words in November (with an option for other word count goals!), unassociated with any organization they don’t trust or agree with. Submit your novel-writing intentions here!
oh, a little reminder, please make sure you reblog any event polls, prompt lists, announcements, etc, to get more reach! There is absolutely no marketing involved in this blog so the only way to spread the word is word of mouth and reblogs :D