Homeschool Online with NaNoWriMo!

Homeschool online with us as we enjoy the challenge of writing a novel in a month at nanowrimo.org!

Every November, writers come together for an event called National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)! At first, the writers were just adults, but as the popularity of the event grew, schools and younger writers began to be involved. Coordinators of NaNoWriMo for adults created a complementary program for younger writers wishing to participate. They call this program the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program (NaNoWriMo YWP). NaNoWriMo YWP has grown just as popular as the adult challenge with whole school districts participating all month long.

Our children enjoyed the challenge last year. They both created novels, edited their novels and received them in full print form from CreateSpace. It didn’t take long for them to learn how to NaNoWriMo. It has become one of our favorite homeschool online activities.

I didn’t participate with them last year. I just acted as a supervisor. Writing a fiction novel of 50,000 words in a month scares me just a bit. Since it was all of our first times following the challenge, I just tried to focus on making our children’s time enjoyable. I may join our children for NaNoWriMo 2012, but I’m not sure yet. I don’t want to focus on myself too much. Although, seeing your parent join you in such a rewarding challenge would probably boost their enthusiasm that much more.

Even though I have my reservations, our children are very excited to start the challenge! We’ve even acquired another writer in our homeschool online writing group. Our middle daughter has enjoyed reading and being read to from her older brother and sisters’ books all year. Now she wants to be a part of the excitement. She’ll be six when she starts so I’ll have to adjust the word count goals for her a bit, which is easy to do!

After posting about our childrens’ success with the NaNoWriMo Young Writers Program last year, a few other parents voiced their interest in going through the program with us this year. I decided to form a group for all of our young writers to gain encouragement and have their own community here on the site.

All those wishing to join the writing group, just leave your comments in the form below about what you are expecting to write about for your novel during NaNoWriMo YWP. You can ask any questions or advice on characters as well. Your comment will create your own page where you can then continue to add your thoughts throughout the month. Others will also be able to comment on your pages and give you the boost of confidence you need to make it through the entire challenge.

I wish you well young novelists!