Throughout the year, we offer opportunities to participate in official community writing challenges: National Novel Writing Month in November and Camp NaNoWriMo in April and July. The timeline for your goal is automatically set to one month, and, in the case of National Novel Writing Month, your word-count goal is automatically set to 50,000. If you reach your word-count goal by the end of the month, you'll get exclusive digital badges, a printable certificate, discounts and offers from our sponsors, and an extra leaf on your writing streak laurel.
Our website also gives you the ability to set an independent goal any time during the year. Independent goals offer flexibility: you set your own word-count goal and timeline. Note: Independent goals do not get access to a winner page with an official certificate, flair, and winner offers.
To set an official challenge goal, look out for the challenge invite banner to appear at the top of your dashboard one month before a challenge starts:
Note that to join with an existing project, you must have at least one project already present on your profile.
To set an independent goal, click on the “challenge yourself” box on your dashboard. It has two options for setting a new independent goal: a button to start a new project with a new goal, and a button to set a new goal for an existing project.
Either way, once you click on a button, we only ask you for several key pieces of information needed to get that goal set. If you want to fill out more information about a project or goal, you’ll still be able to do that by clicking "My NaNoWriMo" in the main navigation bar, then clicking “Projects." On the Projects page, navigate to the project with the goal you want to edit, then click the name of the project to open up the extended view. Then, click "Goals" to see the attached goals, and click the wrench icon next to the goal name to edit it.
You can also tell if a goal is official or independent by following the steps above and looking at the goal name. Official challenge goals have a Viking helmet or tent next to the name of the goal; independent goals do not.
See also: how to set a new goal for an existing project.