How to identify a NaNoWriMo participant in 5 steps

The madness is about to start again.

Are you ready?

For the next 30 days, writers from all over the world are going to retreat in their writing caves and wear out their fingers in order to type 50000 words of fiction. It’s time for NaNoWriMo.

There are a lot of writers that can’t wait to share their experience as much as they can’t wait to start writing. They’re the ones who participate to groups/discussions/forums about NaNoWriMo and change their profile picture on social media with something NaNo-related.

But not every writer who decides to undertake NaNoWriMo is willing to let it be known. Anyway there are a few signs you can search for to detect undercover participants:

1. People who participate to NaNoWriMo tend to disappear both from real life and from social media. If someone you know to be a great Facebook user suddenly posts only one status per day, the chances that he is doing NaNo are high.

2. The rare times when they decide to appear on Facebook or Twitter they only share numbers. They’re not growing fond of Math, they’re just gloating by sharing their word count but don’t want to tell you that it is a word count.

3. Take-aways use is destined to increase dramatically if you are tied to your laptop for many hours a day; so if someone of your acquaintances stops going to the grocery and starts eating a huge amount of Chinese food and pizza you can start being suspicious.

4. NaNoWriMo causes sleep deprivation and caffeine abuse. Search for bags under the eyes and unusual nervousness.

5. The more the end of November gets near, the more they get obsessed with the above mentioned word count. The final proof will be their sudden giddiness on the 1st of December.

Don’t worry, sooner or later they will decide to come out about their NaNoWriMo projects. In the mean time, if you are not ready to deal with this kind of madness, just ignore them. They won’t even notice.

How can I say all of this? Easy. The one described above is the kind of crazy creature I’m going to become for the next thirty days. So… goodbye!

See you in December!

_________________________________________________

If you’re interested in reading more of my posts, don’t forget to sign up to my mailing list and get your FREE download of “Odyssey in the Job-sphere”!