Are you writing yet?

Happy November 1st!

As many of you already know, people across the globe are hammering their keyboards, furiously pounding out the words that will bring to life the ideas they’ve been thinking about for weeks, if not months.  And the real question is, how far are you?

Many people start right at midnight after returning home from whatever Halloween celebrations they attended. Lucky for everyone this year, Halloween was on a Monday so that chances of getting home intoxicated and exhausted are slightly diminished (except for college students). When I participated a few years back, I came home and wrote 300 words before falling asleep with my laptop on my lap. The next morning, I was up early and had another 2-3k done before lunch.

Your best bet is to get ahead early! Did you already hit the minimum word count for today (1,667 words)? Good, now KEEP GOING! This is when you are the most motivated and so use it.  In a few days or weeks, you’ll feel that motivation begin to waver and that’s when you start looking for tricks to get you through.

And make sure you’re having fun with it! Make your characters do silly things, or say things that are absolutely outrageous. In NaNoWriMo, word count is everything, and most of what you write now will get cut. Sure, write some good stuff too, but if you work too hard at being super serious, you might start to get worn down or write yourself into a corner. Do be afraid to throw some crazy stuff in there, a little levity is a good thing.

So consider this my enthusiastic send off. You’ve got a long task ahead of you and though I am not participating this year, I’m cheering you on! Go forth and write!

So you want to win NaNoWriMo: 10 Tips for Success

Back when I defeated the dreaded NaNoWriMo challenge in 2008, there were a few key things I used to be successful and now I will pass them on to you! Some are as simple as some pre-November prep while others are get-it-done habits I had to stick to in order to meet my word count. But keep in mind, while these helped me out tremendously, you have to make NaNoWriMo  your own in order to be successful.

5 Tips for Before

1) Be excited about your idea. Nothing kills your NaNoWriMo experience faster than not being excited about your story. You have to spend 30 intense days with this story, make sure it’s one you want to be writing.

2) Know your daily expectations. What is the minimum word count you want to meet each day? I personally stuck with the (50,000/30=)1,667 words each day and I kept myself reminded of this goal by changing the background wallpaper of my computer to a calender that let me know where I should be on each given day. You can find links to them on the NaNoWriMo forums or search for them on Deviant art. This is the one I used, but they get pretty creative.

Here are some fun ones I found around the web from previous years:

      

3) Create stakes for yourself. Sometimes you just need more than the idea of a 50,000 word manuscript to get you through the day’s last 1000 words. Some people use threat of punishment while other dangle a reward for themselves. The year I won, I had a friend promise to make me a tshirt if I won. Somehow, that was the perfect motivation to keep me moving.

4) Find some writing buddies. Much like creating stakes, you have to surround yourself with people who will motivate you. What better way to do that than to inspire some competition. Add a word counter between you and your buddies to your iGoogle page to keep track of how far ahead or behind of you they are. Challenge each other to see who can write the most words in 10 minutes. Organize a write in, which means go somewhere quite and everyone sits and writes (feel free to add wine to this equation.)

5) Create an outline. Or at least do some sort of planning. The thing about NaNoWriMo is that you don’t have time to stop and think about what you want to happen next, something just has to happen and it is much easier to look down at an outline and know what’s coming next than to have to figure out what should happen next. But an outline can also get you into trouble if you follow it too closely. Many participants find that they complete their outline before reaching their 50,000 word goal and then what? That’s why you want your outline to be just that, an outline of the major events that you need to happen in the novel, but feel free to throw in some other spontaneous events as you go along. Your characters need complications and frustrations, they need to meet new people and discover new things. Sometimes when people need that extra boost of words, they throw in an alien abduction or have a death scene last 10 pages (which will absolutely be cut in editing). You want to have the freedom to do that while also staying within the story you planned for yourself.

After the Jump: More Tips!