We’re already four days into November, can you believe it? Whether you stayed up til dawn with our virtual marathon or got started on your project at a much more reasonable hour, we’re happy you’re here!

In this first week, we are planting seeds. These can be characters you like but don’t have more than a few lines of dialogue for yet, or plots that don’t have an ending in sight. Your story is a forest and half the fun is seeing what grows! 

You might notice that we’ve mixed our metaphors a bit but that’s okay– November is not a time for perfect metaphors and glossy marketing slogans because we’re in the thick of things writing with y’all! Imagine this is some sort of conservation forestry activity. You’re both exploring and planting, or whichever works for you. Let the growth of your forest surprise you as you wander its deerpaths and clearing. Let the sprouting of your seed take whatever shape it grows in. This is all about creativity, and nothing you do is wrong.

In honor of you taking the first step and planting the seed for your novel, we are awarding you the Seed Badge! Plant this badge and see what grows!

Trackbear Leaderboard

Have you moved on from the NaNoWriMo website and need a way to track your words? Missing the graph from previous years? Have no idea what we’re talking about and want us to get to the point?

We are encouraging everyone to use Trackbear to track your progress! This platform will allow you to create projects (what you’re writing) and attach them to a goal (like November). You can attach multiple projects to one goal, and you can attach a project that has a word count already and it will only count what you write during the time period of your goal!

We also have a leaderboard with Trackbear, so you can see how you and everyone else are doing, if you like a little competition! Push for the top 5, find a buddy keeping pace with you and push each other along, or just enjoy the extra stats. Use this join code to appear on the leaderboard: c905e726-d23e-4c4a-b8cb-0c7ae996374c

You can send any questions you have about Trackbear to our #faq channel in the Discord and we’ll do our best to provide support!

Events

We hope your first few days of writing are going well. We’ve added a new write-in for the Northlands, so join Ali at the Panera Bread on NW Barry Road from 6:00-9:00 p.m. for sprints and camaraderie!

We’ll see you at these write-ins this week:

11/4 Monday

• Virtual write-in with Soph
  • 6:00-9:00 p.m.
  • Discord
  • Led by Soph
• Write-in at Panera
  • 6:00-9:00 p.m.
  • 6286 NW Barry Rd, Kansas City, MO
  • Led by Ali

11/5 Tuesday

• Write-in at Outta The Blue
  • 6:00-9:00 p.m.
  • 5291 W 116th Pl, Leawood, KS
  • Led by Joanie

11/6 Wednesday

• Write-in at Front Range
  • 6:00-9:00 p.m.
  • 400 E Gregory Blvd, Kansas City, MO
  • Led by Natalie
• West Wyandotte Library Come Write-in
  • 6:00-8:00 p.m.
  • 1737 N 82nd Street, Kansas City, KS 66112
  • Hosted by the Kansas City, Kansas Public Library

11/7 Thursday

• Write-in at Colbern Road Library Center
  • 6:00-9:00 p.m.
  • 1000 NE Colbern Rd, Lee’s Summit, MO
  • Led by Bee
• West Wyandotte Libary Come Write-in
  • 6:00-8:00 p.m.
  • 1737 N 82nd Street, Kansas City, KS 66112
  • Hosted by the Kansas City, Kansas Public Library

11/8 Friday

• World of Words Virtual Write-In
  • 6:00-9:00 p.m.
  • Discord
  • Led by Erin

11/9 Saturday

• Write-in at Pilgrim Coffee
  • 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m.
  • 12643 Metcalf Ave, Overland Park, KS
  • Led by Co-Organizers

11/10 Sunday

• Rochester Write-In
  • 1:00-4:00 p.m.
  • 2129 Washington St, Kansas City, MO
  • Led by all Co-Organizers

In-Person events usually have a virtual component on our Discord, so if you can’t make it live, you can still write with us!