Write a novel in November. Thirty days, one desk, your words.
Fifty thousand words between November 1 and 30 is the classic target, and it comes to 1,667 a day. Plan your pace below, print the tracker or carry it into Inkling, and spend the month writing instead of counting.
30 writing days between November 1 and November 30. That is about 7 pages a day, or roughly 85 minutes at a steady pace.
Your target, recalculated every morning
Set the challenge as a goal and your desk shows today's number, your running total, and your streak. Miss a day and the daily target adjusts to what is actually left, so a bad Tuesday never turns into quitting on Wednesday.
Never re-read to find your place
Every story opens with a short “Previously” recap of what you have written so far, in your own words. On day 19 you sit down, read four sentences, and keep going. That is an hour a week you get back for drafting.
The plan lives beside the draft
Your outline on the storyboard, your cast in the character builder, your world on the map, and the manuscript itself sit on the same desk. Nothing to switch between, nothing to keep in sync, nothing to lose in a folder.
Nothing writes it for you
There is no chat box. Inkling never drafts a sentence, and your words are never trained on. The whole point of November is that the fifty thousand words are yours, and here they stay that way. How that works.
How the challenge works
- Pick a number. Fifty thousand is the tradition. Any number you will actually hit is better than a number you will abandon on the ninth.
- Count only new words. Outlining in October is allowed and encouraged. Editing in November is not. Forward, only forward.
- Choose your days off before you start. One rest day a week costs you about 250 extra words on the other six. Decide now, not on a tired Sunday.
- Write before you read. Open the draft, read the recap, write the day's words, then do anything else. The order matters more than the hour.
- Finish the month, not the book. Thirty days of showing up is the win. If the novel needs sixty thousand, December is right there.
A shape for the month
Momentum
The easy week. Write ahead while it is fun, because you will want the cushion. Do not reread. Do not fix chapter one.
The dip
The idea stops carrying you and the habit has to. Lower the bar on quality, not on words. A scene that is only a summary still counts.
The middle
Most drafts die here. Pull the outline back up, move a card, ask what your character wants most and take it away. Then write that.
The sprint
You can see the end now. Skip scenes you do not know yet, write the ones you do, and put the words THE END on the page even if it is rough.
The long version, with what to prepare in October and what to do when you fall behind: How to write a novel in 30 days.
Common questions
Is NaNoWriMo happening in 2026?
The nonprofit that ran National Novel Writing Month closed in 2025, but the tradition did not. Writers still draft a novel every November, and this page is a free place to plan it, track it, and finish it. There is no organization to join and nothing to sign up for to use the planner.
Do I have to write 50,000 words?
No. Fifty thousand is the classic target, about the length of a short novel, and it works out to 1,667 words a day. Set any number you like. A writer with a demanding job might choose 30,000. A writer finishing a draft might choose 20,000. The planner does the math for whatever you pick.
What counts as a word?
New words in your draft. Outlines, notes, and rewrites do not count toward the total. In Inkling, only the words you type into a story are counted, so the tracker and your manuscript always agree.
Is this free?
The planner and the printable tracker are free, no account needed. Inkling itself is free for 14 days with everything unlocked and no card to start, then $9 a month or $72 a year, and you can cancel in one click. Your draft is yours to download at any point.
Does anything write the novel for me?
No. Inkling has no chat box and never drafts a sentence. The generator can summarize what you have already written, so you never re-read to find your place, and it can draw a cover or a map. It never writes your story.
Can I do the challenge on my phone?
Yes. Inkling runs in any browser and installs to a phone home screen. Most people draft on a laptop and catch a few hundred words on the phone when they are stuck somewhere with ten minutes.
What happens to my draft in December?
It stays on your desk with its chapters, its cast, and its recap. December is for reading it through, and Inkling has statuses for that: drafting, stuck, resting, finished. If you decide Inkling is not for you, download the whole thing as a Word document and go.
All of it. In one place.
This isn't five apps stitched together. Your storyboard, your cast, your maps, your covers, and the story itself all live on one desk, right beside the words. Nothing to sync between tools. No five separate subscriptions. Just everything a writer needs, finally in the same place.
Your whole writing desk, in one place
Start free today. Bring one story in, and see how much lighter it feels with everything beside it.