I can’t believe it’s November already, Detectives! This year seems to be going very slowly but also incredibly fast. Wherever you are, and whatever you’re doing, I hope you’re safe and well – and still enjoying these prompts!

I loved reading last month’s monster stories – they were all so wonderfully dark and inventive! I particularly enjoyed Edith’s Miss Peregrine fanfic, Astrophysics’ story about Analee lost in space, Grace’s clever poem about the monsters in all of us, Bella123’s dystopian story and Mapenzi’s creepy monster island story.

For this month, I’m going to ask you to do something a bit different. You’ll have noticed that I’ve posted this on a Sunday, instead of on a Monday as usual – and also that the title of this post isn’t quite like all of the others.

That’s because for this month I’m not going to give you a topic to write about. Instead, I’m going to give you a challenge: participate in NaNoWriMo!

NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month (National refers to the USA, though it’s now a worldwide challenge). Every November, writers all over the world try to write 50,000 words of a book in 30 days. Back in 2010, I entered NaNoWriMo with a book idea that I was calling A Most Unladylike Murder. I was working full-time in Blackwell’s Bookstore in Oxford, so I had to make up the daily wordcount in lunch breaks, evenings and early mornings. I didn’t really know what I was doing, and I found trying to write 1,667 words every single day really scary and stressful. I was used to being given as much time as I wanted to finish a story, and used to polishing every sentence until it was perfect before I went onto the next one.

But! At the end of the month I had 50,025 words of a book – pretty bad words, but words that I was able to edit over the next few years into much better ones. And of course, that book became Murder Most Unladylike, and that’s the reason why you’re on this website in 2020! NaNoWriMo taught me to write fast, it taught me that it’s OK for the the first draft to be ugly and it taught me how to push on even when I don’t feel particularly inspired.

Now, I’m not asking you to write 50,000 words! You’re busy with school or college, and 50,000 words is a lot. But these days NaNoWriMo has a program for young writers that allows you to input your own word count goals. You can choose how many days of the month you want to be writing (so you don’t get stressed trying to balance school work with writing), and how many words you want to write every day. If you’re under 13 you need to work with an adult to set up your profile – and even if you’re over 13 I’d suggest talking with an adult to choose your target, so they know what you’re doing and can support you as you write! If you’re in Grade 6 (which I think is Year 7 in the UK) they’re suggesting a top goal of 5,000 words for the whole month – my advice is to be hopeful but realistic. It’s better to win with a shorter goal than set yourself an impossible target!

Please remember, as always, to stay safe online – don’t get into private discussions with anyone you don’t know in real life, and talk to safe adults about what you’re doing and what sites you’re visiting.

So my challenge to you this month is to win NaNoWriMo by writing a story about anything you want, with a total wordcount that you’ve chosen for yourself! Your wordcount can be anything from 500 words to 50,000 – no one will give you marks for writing more words, so choose something achievable rather than something impressive if you’re worried you might not finish. I’m hoping that you’ll be able to use all the skills you’ve learnt over the past months, and I’m hoping that finishing a project will make you feel prouder than ever of your writing.

You can use prompt ideas I gave you in previous prompts, but you cannot use a story you’ve already written. You have to start fresh!

Once you’ve hit your target, come back here and post the first 500 words of your story so we can all read it, and congratulate you on your win! And if you don’t get to your target by the end of the month, that’s OK. You’ve still learned something about yourself and your writing, and you’ll be able to get further next time you try.

So good luck, Detectives! I’m cheering you on!