Writing challenges for you now that NaNoWriMo is over

Dianna Gunn is one of NHT!'s rotating troupe of teen bloggers.You can visit her own blog at diannaswritingden.com

BY: DIANNA GUNN

NaNoWriMo is over for the year and hopefully you've finished your novel. The question is, what should you do now? There are a hundred different answers, but I'm hoping that the one you've chosen is to continue writing and look for new challenges. In fact, I'm so hopeful that you've chosen to continue writing and looking for challenges that I've created a list of challenges inspired by NaNoWriMo just for you.

Keep reading for all the tips... after the jump!

1. NaNoFiMo (National Novel Finishing Month) — This challenge is designed for those unlucky souls who didn't finish their novels during November. The goal is to finish your novel during the month of December or write 30,000 words — estimated to be a good novel finishing amount anyway. It doesn't seem as active as it has been in previous years, but the website is pretty cool and they have a handful of helpful articles.

2. NaNoWriYe (National Novel Writing Year) — This challenge is for the whole year. You set yourself a word count goal for the year and you write on it. There are a number of forums and each year they run workshops, at least one that lasts the whole year and usually one for each month. These forums aren't as active as the NaNoWriMo ones, but they are more active than a lot of other NaNoWriMo-based challenges I've tried and there really is a sense of community. I like to stick around the community, even though I no longer set word goals and set completely different goals instead.

3. NaNoEdMo (National Novel Editing Month) — Every writer knows it really is a good idea to set their novel aside for a little while before they edit it. NaNoEdMo is there to make sure that you really do edit it. They figure March is far enough away from November that you've had lots of time to sit on your book. The goal is 50 hours of editing during the month of March.

4. SoCNoC (Southern Cross Novel Challenge) — This one is run by Kiwis, or New Zealanders if you'd rather call them that. It happens in June and the goal is to write a novel in a month just like you did in November.

5. JulNoWriMo — As you might suspect, this challenge is run during July, and the goal is to write a novel in one month. For this particular challenge I'm pretty sure you can set your own word goal, although I've never participated in this one.

6. AugNoWriMo — This one is a challenge to write your novel in August. You can set your own goal. I've done AugNo twice and loved it both times. The community is active and I made some long-term friends during AugNoWriMo.

Don't forget to bookmark these sites, since most of them won't be active until their respective months and you'll probably forget about them in the meantime. Hopefully with the help of these communities you'll be able to keep writing all year. Sadly, this will be my last post with NOW HEAR THIS!, but you can find me at NaNoWriYe as Litharukia and you can always follow me on Twitter @Diannalgunn. I hope you've enjoyed reading these posts as much as I've enjoyed writing them.