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Welcome to October! You know what that means–we are less than one month away from the start of NaNoWriMo. Don’t panic! October—affectionately called “Preptober”—is a great time to plan your novel.

If you’re reading this, you’re probably contemplating writing a novel in November, which means you’re about to start an exhilarating, monumental, and somewhat-ridiculous but awesome challenge. 

Whether you’re a meticulous “planner,” an impulsive “pantser,” or somewhere in the middle (a “plantser”), you will need to answer a few questions for yourself to be able to understand where you want your story to go. 

If you’re staring at a blank page right now and starting to sweat, we’re here for you! 

The bell rings, my classroom door flies open, and Tony comes hurtling through. “Can we write today, Mrs. Bradley? Please, PLEASE tell me we’re gonna write today!” He glances at the whiteboard, sees “writing” on the agenda, and throws his hands up in celebration. “YES!”

In three decades of teaching, I had never seen 8th graders this eager to write. Of course, there had always been enthusiastic young writers out there, but even they didn’t beg me (loudly) for writing time. But this student, a self-professed not-a-writer, had jumped into the boldest, bravest, most terrifying assignment I had ever given… And he discovered he loved to write.

I was embarrassingly sweaty at our first meeting. 

It was early July, 2025. I was parked on the side of the road, talking with longtime National Novel Writing Month volunteers, former staff, and Young Writers Program teachers. 

The big question on the agenda: What could we do about NaNoWriMo?

After a rocky run, the team who’d taken over the organization in 2024 had announced they’d run out of money and were shutting everything down.   

Soon, the website that had encouraged millions of writers over the past 25 years would disappear. And NaNoWriMo’s Young Writers Program, taught in over 10,000 classrooms, would vanish with it.