It’s that time of year again, and fear is in the air. Around the world writers are knitting their brows, clenching coffee-stained teeth, and breaking out in cold sweats at the thought of not finishing their stories with a bang. It can only mean one thing: it’s National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo. NaNoWriMo an opportunity to flex your creative muscles and take that dive into the literary world you’ve always dreamed of––at least, I hope so. I’ve already completed one novel-length manuscript, but this year I’ll be competing against the clock in my first NaNoWriMo. Besides understanding friends and an endless supply of caffeine, I’ll rely on software suited to NaNoWriMo’s unique demands. Fortunately, there are plenty of NaNoWriMo-friendly options available for your Mac and iOS devices.

Na-No-What-Now?

First, let’s make sure we’re on the same page. NaNoWriMo is a global writing challenge for would-be Hemmingways to write a complete 50,000 word novel between midnight, November 1 and midnight November 30. Quality, genre, and speed don’t mean a thing; you “win” as long as you can craft an original work that meets the word count. The grand prize is nothing more or less than a sense of accomplishment––that, and a draft that you can transform into something even bigger and better. Just ask Erin Morgenstern, whose New York Times bestselling novel, The Night Circus, began as a NaNoWriMo project. Yeah, we think that’s pretty cool, too.

To take your own first step on the road to best-sellerdom, visit www.nanowrimo.org and click the “Start Here” badge to create an account. Then you can create a public author’s bio, search for writing buddies for moral support, and post excerpts from your novel as it grows. The most important step comes when you hit 50,000 words (or more! there’s no maximum count) and finish your novel. That’s when you can upload your final draft for official verification. Don’t worry, the draft isn’t stored and there are no judges to actually read your work. The NaNoWriMo site even includes instructions for scrambling your draft before you upload it, so you can keep prying eyes off your million-dollar plot hooks.

As you might expect, fast and furious writing is the key to crossing NaNoWriMo’s finish line. You’ll have to write 1,667 words a day just to make it, and odds are not every character arc or dramatic turn is going to be gold. That’s okay. You’ll have fun trying, especially if you’ve got the best writing software for the job.

Mac Writing Apps

Since you’ll bang out nothing but raw text for thirty days, it doesn’t matter what word-processing application you use, right? Not quite. While you can use any application, even TextEdit, to write your novel, NaNoWriMo is a great opportunity to try out more specialized writing programs. Your milage may vary, but some of the most useful features to look for are: a running word count, a distraction-free writing mode, and easy syncing with writing apps on your iDevice for times when even a MacBook Air is too big to take with you.

Pages ($19.99) covers these bases nicely, and it’s probably already on your Mac. But as good as it is, you’ll be exporting files as Word documents or plain text if you want to write with anything other than Pages for iOS ($9.99) on your iDevice, and juggling file versions can be confusing when your mind is on cooking up the next big plot twist.

WriteRoom ($9.99) appears to offer little more than a focused writing space, but less can be more when all you want to do is sit down and write. Its built-in Dropbox syncing of plain text files offers plenty of flexibility when choosing an iOS companion app. A $4.99 iOS version is also available.

For more power, consider a dedicated novel-writing application like Scrivener ($45.00). It lets you create and organize chunks of writing, not a single monolithic document––perfect for individual chapters or daily writing sessions. You can also set daily word count limits and alerts to let you know when you’ve hit your target for the day. An export command sends files to your Dropbox folder, and from there to almost any iOS text editor in the App Store.

Time is precious when you’re writing a novel, so any seconds you can shave off typing can help you reach your goal. That’s where TextExpander ($34.99) comes in. It lets you define shortcuts for frequently used words like character names, locations, even the catchphrase your wacky time-traveling robot sidekick mutters in every scene. A $4.99 version is also available for iOS. It can import shortcuts from the desktop version, and it works with a number of iOS writing apps.

iOS Writing Apps

Sometimes real life takes precedent, even for writers in a hot-and-heavy literary contest, and you’ve got to leave your beloved writing nook behind. But whether it’s a trip to the grocery store or a jog on the treadmill, you can still take your novel with you on your iDevice. Syncing to the cloud is the key, and that doesn’t get much easier than with a Dropbox-savvy iOS text editor.

Notebooks ($5.99) offers WebDAV syncing for MobileMe users as well as Dropbox integration, and its optional keyboard extension makes navigating from word to word a snap. Extra features like text searching in documents and a live word count are also handy. A separate iPad version is available for $8.99.

Elements ($4.99) is a universal app that requires a Dropbox account to save files. Its tasteful, uncluttered interface––complete with word count and a scratchpad mode––is great for quick writing sessions on the go.

For a truly minimal interface with a price to match, PlainText (Free, $1.99 to remove ads) is another universal app that delivers Dropbox syncing and word counts in a gorgeous interface only a little more complicated than a sheet of paper. Like Notebooks and Elements, PlainText works with TextExpander for iOS to make entering frequently used words and phrases faster.

Now that you’ve made it this far, you deserve a juicy third-act revelation: the strategies I hope will get me to November 30. I’ll start with a rough outline to use as a guide as I get characters in and out of trouble in my story. When I inevitably get stuck, I’ll steal shamelessly from other books and movies: the bad guy is the hero’s father, it was Earth all along––anything it takes to keep the novel going. I can always make the plot my own when I revise later. Above all I’m going to turn off my inner critic and remember that the goal of NaNoWriMo is to have fun and create a first draft, not a masterpiece.

No matter how you tackle your ideas, or what you use to write with, here’s hoping you’re inspired to enter NaNoWriMo, too. This November just may be the start of an exciting new literary career––yours!