NANO? NAN WHO?

From time to time acronyms and abbreviations will appear in these posts. A number will start out NaNo. . . For readers who have yet to encounter this adventure, it all begins in November with the National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. This delightful and frequently illuminating contest challenges participants to write at least 50,000 new words of fiction in thirty days (or less.) 2008 marked its tenth anniversary competition, and a total of about 119,000 participants showed up. Writer’s Market has recognized NaNoWriMo as one of its “101 Best Writing Websites, 2008.”

Over the years a number of spin offs, extension and imitations have sprung up. Some of these are:
NaNoFiMo - the National Novel Finishing Month (December) - 30,000 words added to a book-length manuscript in thirty days. Like NaNoWriMo I participated in this challenge as well for the first time. Like WriMo I won it as well.
NaNoDecMo - National Novel December Month, basically an independent NaNoWriMo extension. Its motto this year was “100k by December 31: It’s not over until its over.”
NaNoEdMo - National Novel Editing Month, during which the challenge is to invest 50 hours during the month editing a novel manuscript.

There are many others, but the pattern pretty much is consistent among all of them.

FM - Forward Motion This is another website that is its own community of writers. It is a very healthy place for anyone serious about becoming a successfully published writer in time. The community offers an on-going series of on-line courses, opportunities for having your writing output critiqued by other members and for critiquing the submissions of others. In addition they sponsor a wide variety of beneficial writing challenges in fiction, nonfiction and poetry as well as writing marathons.

2YN - Two Year Novel This is a free on-line novel writing course facilitated by the FM Site Administrator. The course splits the novel writing process from initial idea to initial submissions into 104 lessons, paced at one lesson per week. I began this class this month, and regular updates on progress and insights gleaned from this class will appear on this blog.

FFW - Funds For Writers This website regularly appears on the Writer’s Market annual list mentioned above. Here serious writers will find numerous current paying freelance markets, writing competitions and contests, grants for writers and related information. The information is updated on an on-going basis and offers several e-newsletters for interested writers to subscribe to.

Should other acronyms or abbreviations turn up in future posts, I will either define or explain them in a timely manner before continuing.