Along with the benefit of feeling motivated to write a novel because thousands of other people will be doing it, NaNoWriMo offers several goodies to not only help motivate you even more, but to put a smile on your face. The site in of itself is a wonderful source of inspiration and random funness for any crazy noveler. (Yes, I know that funness and noveler aren't real words...No, I'll have you know I hold much respect for grammar and using it correctly...Look, there is a difference between using "me" when I should say "I," and then using words that are obviously made up...I don't care whom you tell that I have poor grammar.)
Anyway, to start off, At the NaNo site there is a lovely forum where you can chat about noveling, (yes, another made up word,) learn and give tips on how to reach the fate 50,000, learn rules about grammar and the nuts and bolts of writing, get other people to name your titles and characters for you, and even dare people to do the most crazy and random things in their novels.
Then there are the pep talks, written by an assortment of well-respected authors. Though technically they aren't actually talks; they're written, so...pep writes? Found either at the NaNo website, or through e-mail, pep talks are one of the ways used to motivate us WriMos to keep at it and keep writing.
To keep the ball rolling, there are the wonderful NaNo videos, a fun way to kill a few minutes of you're loosing steam.
For those of you who want a memento of this crazy month (other than 50,000 words,) check out the store, where you'll find all sorts of NaNo themed merchandise. Coffee cups, totes, books, stickers, and badges; they're all there.
There are also cool web badges, like the one you can see to the right at the top of the column. There are several different kinds to choose from, but they each have a general "theme." The cool thing is that each year, the "theme" changes. I liked last year's theme better, but I still like how it changes.
Last, but certainly not least, there are the word count widgets. I know how they worked last year, but I can't really say for this year, because they actually haven't come out this year, and I don't think they do until November. Each year though, there are all sorts of cool widgets that you can put on your personal website/blog. When you update you word count on the NaNo website, the widget updates as well and keeps track of your word count in a variety of cool graphs.
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