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. Whether you join Novel November or go it alone, 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. Set it in October and it waits for November 1 before it starts counting. Miss a day and the words-a-day you need to finish 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.
Novel November, NaNoWriMo, and this page
- NaNoWriMo is not running in 2026. The nonprofit behind National Novel Writing Month announced it was shutting down at the end of March 2025, citing long-running money problems.
- Novel November stepped in. ProWritingAid, the writing software company, runs Novel November: free to join with a free ProWritingAid account, November 1 to 30, 2026 in your local time, with a 50,000-word goal, a word count dashboard, daily sprints, and workshops. Its 2025 recap reports 68,000 writers and more than 353 million words in the first year.
- Preptober is already underway. Novel November's October prep workshops began on October 1. If you want a plan for the weeks you have left, here is a three-week Preptober plan.
- You can do both. Inkling is not affiliated with ProWritingAid or Novel November. Join Novel November for the community and the sprints, and use this planner and Inkling's writing desk for the draft itself if you like. Novel November's dashboard lets you log a word count by hand, so the number from your Inkling goal carries over in a few seconds.
- Or do it on your own. No sign-up is needed for the planner or the printable tracker on this page. A writing friend, a library group, or a calendar on the fridge is a perfectly good November.
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 do when you fall behind: How to write a novel in 30 days. Still in October? Start with the Preptober plan.
Common questions
Is NaNoWriMo happening in 2026?
No. The nonprofit that ran National Novel Writing Month announced it was closing at the end of March 2025, citing money problems, so there is no official NaNoWriMo event. The tradition carried on without it. The largest successor is Novel November, a free challenge run by ProWritingAid, and plenty of writers simply run the month on their own or with a writing group.
What is Novel November?
Novel November is a free 30-day writing challenge run by the writing software company ProWritingAid, which started it in 2025 after NaNoWriMo closed. The 2026 challenge runs from November 1 to November 30 in your local time, with the classic goal of 50,000 words. You join with a free ProWritingAid account, and it offers a word count dashboard, writing sprints, and workshops. ProWritingAid reports that 68,000 writers took part in 2025.
What is Preptober?
Preptober is the name writers use for October, the month you spend getting ready to draft a novel in November: a premise, a cast, a rough plan, and a writing schedule. It started as community slang around NaNoWriMo. Novel November now uses it too, with free prep workshops that began on October 1, 2026.
Can I do Novel November and use Inkling?
Yes. They are separate and you can use both. Inkling is not affiliated with ProWritingAid. Novel November gives you the community, sprints, and workshops; Inkling is a place to plan and write the draft and keep your daily target. Novel November's dashboard lets you log a word count by hand, so you can copy in the number your Inkling goal shows.
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 character profiles do not count toward the total. In Inkling, the goal counts words added to your stories from the day the challenge starts, so October prep on the storyboard or in character profiles never inflates your November number.
Is this free?
The planner and the printable tracker on this page are free, no account needed. Inkling itself gives you 14 days to experience the full writing desk, build worlds, and be creative. No card to start. After that it is $9 a month or $72 a year. The trial is shorter than November, so to write the whole month in Inkling you would need a plan for the second half. If a trial ends, nothing is deleted and you can still export every story to Google Docs.
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. It can also list your cast and places, read your story for place names when you build a map, turn dictation into text, and draw a cover. 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, export the whole thing 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.