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Congratulations to everyone who participated in National Novel Writing Month! With the end of November, you are either looking with glee at a 50000-word (or more) manuscript or sadly facing the fact that you just couldn’t make it to 50000.

Either way, you accomplished something meaningful — either you finished (or at least made a good start on) a major writing project, or you didn’t make it and learned some pretty important things about yourself as a writer and about how to manage your time, enthusiasm, and creativity to make it for the long haul. I admire the people who took the challenge, regardless of your final word count.

I hope the posts here have helped you in your efforts, especially the interviews with NaNoWriMo participants. I am grateful to everyone who answered the call — I really appreciate you taking the time to share your advice with your fellow WTC readers. My thanks to:

• Trisha Bartle
• Carolyn Dekat
• Sonja Faust
• Catherine Hicks
• Amanda Kendle
• Betty Punkert
• Whitney Rhodes
• Jon Strother

Let’s do it again next year, and more besides! In the meantime, keep writing. Have a happy holiday season and into the New Year.

We now return to our regularly scheduled programming.

Image via Wikipedia

It’s November, and that means National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo for short and harder to type), that wonderful time of year when writers and would-be writers throw off the bounds of sanity and commit themselves to writing a full-fledged novel in a month. And it’s not even one of the long, 31-day months!

I don’t write novels (not yet, anyway…) and I have other commitments for this month anyway, so I won’t be doing the crazy “March to 50,000 Words” that NaNoWriMo participants are engaged in. But I didn’t want to stay out of the game entirely, so I’ve decided to celebrate and support NaNoWriMo this year, even though I’m not technically taking the challenge.

Over the next month, you’ll find interviews with a good number of folks who have participated in NaNoWRiMo in the past, with their advice for hanging in and making your time count. (Special thanks to everyone who agreed to be interviewed!) You’ll also find tips and motivation from me on getting and staying productive — my hope is that naNoWriMo writers will pop by every couple days or so for a few minutes of advice before diving back into their works-in-progress.

Of course, Aaron Peters is continuing his series on Linux and open source tools for writers, which has been great so far. And we may have some other guest posts, from familiar guests like Stephanie Siavetti and maybe a new guest or two. And later this week I’ll announce the winner of the iMindMap giveaway!

So stay tuned all month — this is gonna be FUN!