1. Lock Up Your Inner Editor
Lock her up, throw away the key, and when she screams to be
let out of her cage, just ignore her. Do not edit your work as you write! This
is the cardinal rule of NaNoWriMo. Everyone knows this rule, but not everyone
follows it. We are always tempted to read our own work and edit as we go along,
but the truth is, if you keep stopping every few minutes to read your own work
and beat yourself up about how inferior it is, you will never get anywhere. This
is the most insidious form of self-sabotage you will encounter during the month
of November. NaNoWriMo is about quantity over quality. Just as the sculptor
must begin his masterpiece by procuring a raw block of stone, so must the
writer create a first draft that can, once it’s finished, be molded into
something beautiful. Concentrate on getting to 50,000 words, not on writing the
most beautiful piece of prose ever conceived. If you focus on quantity over quality,
at the end of the month you will have 50,000 words worth of raw material to
craft into something magical.
2. Make a Public Declaration
Get on social media and declare your intentions to the
world! Tell everyone on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, whatever media you use
that connects you to other people. Making a public declaration of your intent to
write 50,000 words in a month keeps you honest and helps you build an
invaluable support system of personal cheerleaders all there to root you on to
the finish line. The best thing about making a public declaration is that it’s
a good way to involve the non-writers in your life in your adventure. You would
be surprised by how many of your Facebook friends and family are truly
fascinated by this strange and wonderful experiment. When you’re having a tough
day and just can’t make your word count goal, post about it, and support will
come rolling in from the most unlikely places: your mom, your dad, your high
school boyfriend, your second cousin once removed, that friend of a friend you
met at a party once. People want to support you. Tell them your intentions and
let them be part of the experience.
3. Get Involved
Last year, over 300,000 people participated in NaNoWriMo. 300,000!
That’s 300,000 writers all writing, plotting, planning, procrastinating, and
worrying at the same time. Writing may primarily be a solitary experience, but
during the month of November it becomes a collective one. Take advantage of
that. Take advantage of the fact that you are not alone in your struggle to
reach 50,000 words. Go on the NaNo forums, find your local NaNoWriMo chapter,
and see what events they’re hosting. Go to write-ins. Go to your local
chapter’s Kick Off and TGIO parties. If there are no write-ins in your
neighborhood, start your own. If you can’t leave the house or there are no
other Wrimos in your area, go on the NaNo forums and get involved. Join the
NaNoWriMo Facebook group and comment to your heart’s content. There are so many
people actively participating in this wonderful adventure. Find them, either in
real life or in your virtual one, and connect. It makes the experience that
much more rewarding and gives you a sense of support and camaraderie that you
will genuinely long for the rest of the year.
4. Play the Numbers Game
NaNoWriMo is just as much about numbers as it is about
words. The goal of NaNoWriMo is to write 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s 1,667
words per day. Focus on these numbers. Embrace them. Let them lead you on to
victory. When you look at that 50,000 words as 30 individual daily word count
challenges it gets a little easier. Every year, my very first step on my
NaNoWriMo journey is going to the NaNo Artisans forum and downloading a word
count calendar. These calendars are made by other participants and feature
various word count goals for the month, the most common being 50,000 words.
Grab one, make it your desktop wallpaper. It will list your total word count
goal for every day of November, helping you keep on track. For added support,
NaNoWriMo also provides every participant with an individual Stats page that
monitors your progress in graph form and gives you statistics on your average
daily word count and how many words you need each day to reach 50,000. Having concrete
goals to strive for, set down in numbers, makes getting through the month
worlds easier.
5. Get Creative
One issue I see again and again on the NaNo forums is people
running out of material for their novel long before they’ve reached their word
count goal. If this happens to you, and it very well may, do not despair. Do
not give up. Just get creative! Take your story in a new direction. Add new
characters, jump around in time, write flashbacks, have aliens invade your
Regency romance novel and slaughter everyone. Do something that’s going to spur
your imagination into action. If you can’t think of anything at all, go to the Reaching
50,000! forum on the NaNoWriMo website and choose a challenge or two to add
word count to your story. Whatever you add doesn’t have to make sense within
your main storyline as long as it helps you reach your daily goal. Eventually,
you will either find a way to work all of that craziness into your main plot or
you will find that you’ve discovered something new and wonderful that you never
would have dreamed of before. Don’t be afraid to explore the limitless
possibilities of the empty page.
Although it can seem daunting to even attempt to write
50,000 words in 30 days, it is, in fact, not as harrowing as you might expect.
With the right determination and a bit of creativity, both on and off the page,
winning NaNoWriMo is definitely within your reach.
For more information about National Novel Writing Month, go
to www.nanowrimo.org.
(This article was originally published in the October 2015 issue of Shorelines, the Newsletter of the Long Island Romance Writers, Inc.)
(This article was originally published in the October 2015 issue of Shorelines, the Newsletter of the Long Island Romance Writers, Inc.)
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