A Newbie’s Guide to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

Greetings and salutations!  The season is upon us again and I couldn’t be more thrilled that another National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is upon us again.  This will be my third go around at composing fifty thousand words in thirty days or less.

I wound up at 18,000 words during 2007.  This was a tough pill for me to swallow.  I really thought that I had what it would take when I started, but just wasn’t ready for it.  No excuses.  I didn’t bring my A game.

2008 was a different story – There was no way that I was going to lose again.  I did some superficial prep and resolved myself that no matter what else happened I was going to do it.  Fortunately I was smart enough that time to not rely upon willpower alone.

I’ve included some of my not-so-secret weapons for anyone who’s going through the first time, or feels they needed an extra push to get over the finish line.

1. Know your characters – Have a good understanding of a couple of the main characters in your story.  Whatever pieces of a plot that you choose to start with will be colored with richer scenes if the characters are well developed by the time you reach the end of your story.

2. Check your internal editor at the door – This was a large part of what sunk me my first year.  Whatever you do, DO NOT… I repeat DO NOT GO BACK AND EDIT WHAT YOU HAVE JUST WRITTEN.  If you must read the last paragraph on the page to figure out where to go next, by all means, but under no circumstances should you work on editing it in any way, shape, or form.  It will take you down that dark perfectionists’ road from which there is no way that you’ll be able to sustain your word count.  Worry about refining in December.

3. Step away from the research – If you have not started research for your novel, do not start it now.  Really.  If you’re writing as fast as you need to be and mixing in research, you are going to start throwing in all sorts of extraneous details if you’re too close to the source material during the creative process.  Focus on the story and your characters.  You can annotate details that don’t seem correct and go back and fill them in later.

4. Trust in your abilities – Or more directly: Trust in Yourself.  One of the worst pieces of advice that I’ve heard given to confused people looking to get themselves back on track is “Trust in the Process”.  It doesn’t work here.  Trust me.  You’re the only one who can get to the end of this journey where your novel awaits.  No one else is going to write it for you and no one else’s process is going to make your work the unique piece of art that you are working towards.

5. Bring reinforcements – This was the second big part of why I failed the first year.  I’m a competitive person by nature and didn’t have anyone else to play off of when I went on my month long quest.  If there was a point where I was getting bored, I took a day off, or worse, got involved with other projects.  Last year I took a different approach.  I talked it up to everyone I knew, including one member of my writing group that joined.  I never had a chance to fail between my cheering section and my partner in crime whose word count was just ahead of me for most (OK… all) of the journey.

6. and finally… Prepare to be amazed – I look back at what I produced that month and I was floored that I was the person who wrote it.  There were some parts that literally blew me away.  I didn’t realize that I was capable of putting my thoughts to words in such an entertaining way.  There was crap (O yes.. there was plenty of that), but even for that less than resonant prose, it still filled in the story a lot better than other attempts that I have made where I tried to get everything correct down to the word before moving to the next paragraph.

The most important lesson that you’ll learn by the end is that NaNoWriMo can happen anytime and anyplace.  It isn’t restricted to November and it sure isn’t restricted to novel-length works.

Fifty thousand word in thirty days.  On your mark, get set…