Every three months … .

Yeah, remember? http://5-rings.com/blog/2009/09/every-three-months/

Shall we try this again?

Let’s make it nice and easy.

Ten days isn’t a lot of time to get prepared. A lot of you might be coming off a NaNoWriMo crash, hoping for a little R & R.

I know I’m exhausted from the rollercoaster ride I’ve been on….

So the new rules (and I use that term loosely) are as follows:

THE BASICS:

• Event will run from Dec 1st-31st.

December; 31 days. Snowy. Airplane trips. Nasal congestion. Santa Claus….

• Simply write 350+ words per day!

We’re tired. It’s been a long year. 250+ is fiiiine. We don’t need to do 350 or 1,000 or whatever.

• To discourage project-jumping, please pick only one project for this event (preferably something novella/novel-sized).

Ignore that. Project jumping is fiiine. Write short stories. Edit. Hop to novella-sized projects mid-sentence. It’s all good.

• You’ll need to publish your daily word counts every day by midnight using a blog of some kind; something that I can check against a time-stamp (Even a Twitter account will do).

               The simplest Tweet can look like this:

               250 words.
               11:59 PM May 1st from web.

By midnight?!? We’re on the honor system here, people. You can post your wordcount the next morning if ya have to. But at least try to get it there by midnight so I can write about how awesome you’re doing in these posts. 

• Of course, you’ll want to double-check your local settings to make sure it matches your time zone.

Meh. If it’s roughly around it, give-or-take, that’s fiiine.

ADDITIONAL RULES:

• You are allowed to project-jump if and only if you finish your manuscript during the event.
• If you’d like to participate but haven’t signed up yet, you’ll need to reply to this or any of my blog posts before May 1st, stating what project you’d like to work on and a link to the blog you wish to use for the event. Alternatively, you are also welcome to contact me.

*shrugs* If you want to hop in mid-NPI, that’s fiiine.

• You can be as detailed as you want with your posts. The simplest post can just be a word count, but you’re welcome to keep track of your total word count, talk about what you’ve been writing, and maybe even share a snippet or two—if you’re feeling generous.
• Since we’re upping the ante from 250 to 350 words per day, and I’d like to see everyone make it to May 31st,  I am allowing one day of reprieve. Hopefully, this will go a long way to prevent burn-out/serve as padding in the event of an emergency.

Up to THREE days of reprieve. This may sound pretty laid-back but there’s those family dinners, the present-opening, and all that fun stuff. And 250 words per day x 28 days is still 7,000 words.

• The break-down:

1. A “Knock-out” is 0-249 words. (After the three Days of Reprieve are exhausted!)
2. An “Update” is 250-999 words.
3. A  “Session” is 1,000-1,667 words.
4. A “Tougher-than-NaNo” is anything greater than 1,667.
5. An “End of the Book” is when you’ve completed your WIP and type ‘THE END’.

WHAT’S IN IT FOR ME?:

• At the very minimum, if you keep up, you’ll end up with 7,000 words added to your work-in-progress. This is a great kick-in-the-butt for us procrastinators!
• I think you’ll find NPI is surprisingly uplifting and friendly—everybody participating (and the people watching from the sidelines) tend to be extremely supportive. Which leads me to…
• You’ll meet lots of new friends! :D
• I will periodically link to each of your sites and post your word-tallies up to a “Knock-out”.

So if you’re looking for something fun to do this cold and lazy winter, sign on up. I’ll be looking forward to it!