NaNoWriMo, aka National Novel Writing Month, is at the core of my comic writer origin story.
I was once a Grade 6/7 teacher in a middle school program for gifted students - you know, the kind of students who have digits of pi contests in the back of the SUV on a field trip. It was a blast, but it was also a challenge to provide meaningful classroom tasks for a group of kids who had coasted through life not having to do anything “hard” in school. I was one of those kids, and when I finally got to university, I found myself vastly unprepared as I’d rarely had to study or buckle down to get work done until that point. I was determined to make sure that this didn’t happen to my students.
NaNoWriMo eventually became one of the cornerstones of my teaching year. During November, the grade 6s would write 6,000 words; my grade 7s would write 7000 words. There was no expectation of the novel being great (just because you’ve played violin at Carnegie Hall doesn’t mean you can write - although that student could). However, we’d use this meaningful chunk of raw text to learn how to edit and refine a story in lessons throughout the rest of the year. In the end, many of the students went on to “publish” their books via a print-on-demand service and even if they didn’t, I knew that in the future, a 5,000-word university term paper would not feel so daunting.
During much of the school year, but especially during NaNoWriMo, students were permitted to use their D.E.A.R., aka “drop everything and read,” time to write and edit their novels. I modelled the process of writing during this silent 15-minute activity. It was during one of these NaNoWriMo challenges that The Lump Sum Saga came to life. I remember thinking to myself, “I need something easier to do, so maybe I’ll write a graphic novel.” Oh. My. Goodness. Was that thought ever naive?! Silly man! I learned a lot, and while that 80% finished graphic novel rough draft of TLSS will never see the light of day, I was hooked. I learned that writing a graphic novel is different and challenging but in no way “easier” than writing a prose novel when done with care and thoughtfulness.
If you are planning to tackle NaNoWriMo, it is the perfect time to try out Scrivener because Literature and Latte are sponsors of the challenge. They make a free-to-use, all-features-in version of Scrivener that provides an extended trial, and if you complete the challenge and become a NaNoWriMo 2023 Winner, you can get the software for 50% off (which is nuts as this “not a subscription” power tool only costs $59.99 in the first place!) Even if you aren’t successful, there is a 20% discount.
To download your trial version, visit their NaNoWriMo page via this link.1
I introduced Scrivener to my class in the lead-up to NaNoWriMo, and I’d venture to guess that about 1/3 continued to use it the rest of the year, even though it meant paying for the software themselves. (The rest just “compiled” & exported their work to Word before the trial ended.)
Even if you are not participating in NaNoWriMo, I encourage you to give Scrivener a try. If you do, be sure to take a few minutes to do the tutorial. Also, note that the “Scrivener for Comics” menu item of the site will take you to several posts about using this tool for writing your own comics. A good place to start is here:
Best wishes to everyone taking on the NaNoWriMo! You’ve got this!
Full transparency: this is an affiliate link.