Guest Post - Elizabeth Flora Ross

In today's post, Elizabeth tells us about NaNoWriMo's more serious cousin, WNIN.

The name of the game is WRITE FOOL!

While I am having a great deal of fun flexing my writing muscle and pushing myself out of my comfort zone through the writing memes for The Red Dress Club, the truth is my specialty is nonfiction. It’s what I enjoy, and I believe it is what I do best.

When I started to hear all the buzz about NaNoWriMo and saw how many of my writer friends were participating, I was feeling left out. Then I discovered Write Non Fiction in November (WNFIN) and had a major Ah Ha moment!

The focus of NaNoWriMo is to get down as many words as possible on a “from scratch” novel during the month of November, with a goal of 175 pages or 50,000 words, while resisting the urge to edit. The focus in on output. I believe this is a great way to begin a new writing project. In fact, it is the first step of my own writing process.

The parameters of WNFIN are a little different. WNFIN challenges participants to focus on writing and polishing a piece of nonfiction. It does not specify the piece be new, nor does it focus on word count. The goal is to have something that is complete and ready to submit by month’s end.

This worked perfectly for me, because I was basically at that stage already with my book. I had completed the 10 pre-steps recommended by WNFIN. All I needed was to flesh out my work, adding more depth and editing the overall piece.

I have been incorporating the feedback I received from members of The Red Dress Club through its critique process. That is something I had been eager to do for some time. And let me tell you, that feedback has made my work much better! I love how taking some of the constructive criticism from other talented writers has helped me improve.

So basically what I am doing with WNFIN is using it as motivation to take what I started some time ago and finish it. I have posted an update on my progress so far on my blog today. If you are interested, please stop by and check it out.

And if you are a nonfiction writer, or have always been interested in trying your hand at it, the WNFIN website has been posting fantastic resources all month. Be sure to take some time to browse through the articles.

Happy writing! I can’t wait to see where we all have ended up by the end of this month…