Hey, writers, as October comes to a close quite there is a large community of aspiring writings out there asking “should I or shouldn’t I?”.
What is that big decision they are pondering? Why NaNoWriMo of course! I’ve probably talked about NaNoWriMo a million times here, and my first novel started out as a NaNoWriMo book, but in case you’re not familiar with the it, NaNoWriMo is the abbreviated term for National Novel Writing Month.
Here’s a quick description from their website:
National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing.
On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30.
Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought about writing a novel.
And that’s it. Write a 50,000-word novel in 30 days. Sounds fun, right? It’s only 1667 words per day.
Now I want you to take it from me and others like me: this isn’t something you just do. If you “just do” this–especially if you’re a newer writer–you will fail. The first time I attempted, I failed miserably, and had to drop out before the month was even half over. (When you’re in the process of failing, you get to say thinks like “If I write 8200 words tonight, I’ll be caught up!”) You’ll learn to hate writing, and hate yourself as well.
The next two years went much better and I was able to finish both years, and stop hating myself in the process, which was awesome. And then it stopped because we started having kids. For those curious, the laws of physics forbid you from simultaneously being a parent and writing 1667 words per day.
But that’s not important. What is important is this:
What is the secret to (NaNoWriMo) success?
I’m going to share, but you’re going to think I’m giving a cop-out answer. Nontheless, here it is: The secret to NaNoWriMo success is planning. And that’s it. If you know what you’re going to write before you write it, you’ll get it done faster. And time is your biggest opponent in the month of November. Now that I think about it, they kind of screw you over too, because Thanksgiving weekend is included in those thirty days. You very well may lose a day or two during that, so you might not even get the full thirty days to accomplish the mission.
Either way, let’s talk about planning.
Now, I’m not going to tell you to outline your whole novel before you begin. I get that some people don’t work that way. But you must plan this out in one way or another, or there is no way you’ll finish. The simplest thing to do is have a short, sweet, and simple blueprint to your novel. I’m not saying lay out every scene, but having a general sense of where things are going will save you a lot of “blank screen” time. And let’s face it: You don’t have time to sit and stare at a blank screen wondering what’s next.
Now onto the daily planning…. Listen carefully, because this is the best writing advice ever. Before you start writing, take a couple of minutes and make a quick list of what’s going to happen in the scene you are about to write. Visualize it, and then get going.
I’ve been doing this for a couple of weeks now in my regular non-NaNoWriMo writing, and I’ll tell you, my word counts have skyrocketed because of this simple little trick. Do it with NaNoWriMo and watch yourself hit that 1667 every day in two hours or less.
And the best part? It’s not considered cheating to start planning your novel early.
What about cheating?
I actually had someone ask me about cheating once. The easy answer is “don’t,” but since NaNoWriMo works mostly on the honor system, it is tempting. But come on…why cheat on an honor system game? The whole point of the contest is to train yourself to write faster and also to show that you can finish a book.
But there is one “cheat” that I think is okay. The official NaNoWriMo people might disagree with me here, but I’m going to go out on a limb and predict that your novel will not be 50,000 words long. I will most likely be somewhere inside the 65,000-75,000 word range. So after you hit 50,000, you’re going to have to keep working on the project.
But my question is this? If you’re going to have to add another 15K on the back-end, what does it hurt to put that 15K on the front end. Why not start now? If you have a good 5-10,000 words written before NaNoWriMo, why not use it? I’m guessing it’s a lot easier to hit 1667 words a day on a story your already invested in than on one your just starting.
The only catch is if you want to consider yourself a NaNoWriMo winner, then you better add 50,000 to whatever that starting word count is. Because, really, the goal isn’t so much to write a novel, as it is to write the first 50,000 words of one. So go ahead and start early; I won’t tell anyone 🙂
You’ve got just over a week before it begins, so if you do participate this year, come leave us an occasional update in the comment section. I’d love to see how our readers are doing this year.
Best of luck! Now get to the planning.
