YWP 2012: Calculated for Excellence

As nanowrimo.org enters its Blue Period with a refurbished face and new features, we’ve also been busy with development over at the Young Writers Program. Here are a few things we’re excited about on our relaunched 2012 site.

For the first time, we’ve introduced an interactive Word-Count Goal Calculator. Logged-in users can participate in a 10-minute freewrite, answer a couple of quick questions, and then get a recommendation for a unique, challenging-but-reachable target. We’re hoping it’ll be very helpful to the participants and educators of all ages that participate in the YWP.

Writers can now also customize their workbooks. The free, downloadable PDFs have text boxes for each exercise, so kids and teens can record all their character- and plot-planning in one convenient file.

Our pep talkers this year… well, we’re pretty proud of them. Legends like Lois Lowry, Kate DiCamillo, and Walter Dean Myers join awesome contemporary YA authors to create a perfect storm of noveling encouragement. We’ve also reorganized our pep archive so all that inspiration is in one accessible place.

Speaking of reorganization, we’ve created all-new Resources for Young Writers and Resources for Educators pages. We want our users to be able to easily find anything they need.

There are also several much-requested usability changes (editing novel and author info, adding users to Virtual Classrooms, etc.) that participants and educators will be sure to notice as they get ready for November.

And in non-site-related news, we’re shipping out free classroom kits and YWP merchandise at gazelle-like speeds.

In short, the Young Writers Program is ready for NaNoWriMo 2012. Are you?

— Chris