Welcome to November, Authors! As we move on from spooky season, we enter a month historically known by authors as a chance to put words on paper and attempt to write a book in a month. Unfortunately, the organization responsible for National Novel Writing Month is no longer with us, leaving some authors in need of a new writing challenge.
Fortunately for the writing community, there have been new challenges rising to the call to present new November author challenges. We have decided to gather some writing challenges authors can take part in for the month of November.
The Challenge of the Written Word
The Order of the Written Word (O2W) is currently running The Challenge of the Written Word as their November Challenge. They have three versions of this challenge for authors to focus on
- The Novelist’s Initiation: Aim to write 30,000 words of a novel or finish the first draft of a new novel.
- The Trials of Verse & Vignette: Write either 15 poems or 8 short stories, with word counts ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 words.
- The Refinement Ritual: Revise an existing manuscript, whether it’s a novel, short story collection, or poetry collection.
The challenge is focused on encouraging authors to create and offering support and a community to help them achieve their writing goals. They even have a Discord for authors looking to join the community challenge.
Novelember
World Anvil is keeping the spirit of National Novel Writing Month alive with their own 50,000 word writing challenge called Novelember. The challenge is for prose writing, including novels, novellas, and short stories. Authors looking to take part can track their progress on the site, and progress will be rewarded with digital badges and certificates for authors who hit their goals.
World Anvil also has a Discord community for authors looking to connect and support each other. They also host a 10,000 word World Building challenge in December called Worldember for authors who would might want to spent December fleshing out a new fictional world of their own creation.
Novel 90
Rather than focusing on a challenge restricted to November, AutoCrit has started Novel 90, a 90 Day Writing Challenge. This three month writing challenge has you join a team based on your preferred preparation style: Plotter, Pantser, or the hybrid Plantser.
Full disclosure: this challenge started in October. But authors can still register, and will still gain access to a wealth of motivational resources. When you sign up to participate, you can take advantage of live coaching, weekly live streams, and daily motivational emails to encourage and motivate your writing. You also get access to a premium webinar, How to Write to Market, as a registration bonus!
Ultimately, there are no rules for how you choose to write this November. Still, the author community will continue to find ways to celebrate writing and encourage each other to achieve our goals. The world needs your story, so best of luck and happy writing!