NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month, a writing event that started back in 1999 and takes place every November. Despite its name, it’s celebrated all around the globe and it poses a real challenge: writing 50,000 words in 30 days. Although it sounds demanding (and hell it is!) if you are a writer (or want to be) you should experience NaNoWriMo at least once in your life.
Why should you Participate in NaNoWriMo?
There are many reasons to get involved in NaNoWriMo. On the one hand, if you are disciplined, you’ll end November with 50,000 words written, which is no small deed. This doesn’t mean you would have finished your novel, but at least you would’ve taken the leap and you’d be one big step closer to making your dream of being a published author come true.
On the other hand, by the end of November, if you took the challenge seriously (even though you might have not reached the 50,000-words’ goal), you’ll get out of this experience having a better understanding of the writer that lives in you and what feels like to be part of a writing community. This month of stress, effort, and hard work will bring up fears you thought you didn’t have, hidden talents, strengths, weaknesses… and imagine doing that at the same time as thousands of other writers. It will help you willingly face writing and your career as a writer from a new different perspective… and I can tell you, the feeling is just amazing.
Is it necessary to follow these tips?
NaNoWriMo is a productivity challenge consisting in writing 50 000 words in one month (which is equivalent to 1,667 words a day). And you might think: Is it that necessary to start preparing things from October? Can’t I just start writing in November? And the truth is that you can definitely do it. Will it be possible for you to finish the challenge that way? That’s a completely different question. And it doesn’t have anything to do with your writing skills or your discipline. It has to do, not only with the tiredness that starts making tolls after a few days, but also with our tendency to leave things for another moment, and even our day-to-day life… and I’m not even talking about stress, negativity and the possibility of getting blocked.
That’s why here in Blue Raven Club we think that preparing for NaNoWriMo a month earlier is a fundamental part of succeeding at NaNoWriMo. These are some tips you can take into account to prepare for this exciting, yet challenging adventure:
If you don’t know where to start at all, you can start here. Then come back, we’ll be waiting for you.
1. Prepare your Survival Kit
Don’t ever forget to prepare your Survival Kit! Think about what is it that you drink when you are writing? Is it beer? Energizing drinks? For me, it’s a delicious and irreplaceable coffee. Whenever I start writing, I take my cup with me. So, whether it’s coca-cola or tea, make sure you have enough before November begins! You don’t want to waste time running to the store just to grab the drink you need to write.
Another thing to keep in mind is to eat food that boosts your brain activity, or how I like to call it “The perfect excuse to eat chocolate”. If you are not a chocolate fan (and therefore, an alien), you can also try dry fruits and energy bars.
You have to face the fact that your November diet is not going to be as healthy as you might want. So, say goodbye to homemade food and hello to those spring rolls and frozen pizza. One thing that saved my life last year was preparing my food in advance. Fill your fridge with all kinds of ready-to-eat food in Tupperware. This way you’ll just have to heat them in the microwave. We got no time to waste!
2. Create a Realistic Writing Calendar
When facing NaNoWriMo, every little help counts! That’s why here in Blue Raven Club; we’ve made a unique NaNoWriMo calendar to keep track of your word count every day. Yet, I have said you need a realistic calendar. If we do some math, you can easily realize that 1,667 words per day for 30 days equals 50,010 words. However, some of us have school, work, and house chores. Thus, some days it’s going to be difficult to get to those 1,667 words.
And you would ask: But, what can we do Pat? Well, I bring solutions! Take time to consider when you are busier and when you have more time. In my case, I had classes in the morning from Monday to Friday and on weekends I had French lessons and I had to do the housework. Thus, I modified my calendar, I would write 2,000 words on weekdays, and on weekends I would write only 900. This way I made sure to accomplish my goal every week. You can do the same, but tailoring it to your own schedule.
3. Create a Beautiful and Comfortable Writing Spot
You can obviously write wherever you want, but in my opinion, I think it’s better to have a spot in your house where you can let your imagination flow and write whenever you want.
Chose the part of your house in which you feel comfortable and try to decorate it in a way that inspires you. Pale blue and white are colors that boost creativity and green is very good for concentrating.
Try to make it a place you want to come back to every day. Also, put there everything you think you might possibly need, and more. I like to keep a planner, a notebook, post-its, typex, pens, stickers, and other things on my desk. This way I don’t need to go anywhere in case I need to write down something that came to my mind and doesn’t exactly match with my current writing. Make sure you have enough of everything in there for the whole month.
4. Plan your Novel Beforehand
One of the most difficult things about NaNoWriMo is to come up with a solution for the innumerable difficulties that you might face throughout the process. That’s why; my next suggestion is to take some time in October to think a bit about how you want to develop your story.
Although many of you may disagree with me on this, and despite the fact that up to some point I disagree with myself too, I think this is important. I speak from my own experience, and all the times that I couldn’t finish NaNoWriMo, had to do with me being blocked and not knowing what to do next. Thus, I recommend you to work on the outline, the characters, and the narrator before October ends.
You don’t have an idea for your NaNo project yet? That’s all right. Check this article, and I guarantee that you’ll have come up with something by the end of it.
5. Outline
NaNoWriMo brings up all our weaknesses as writers, and the one that I fear the most is having a poor structure that will guide me nowhere. I can’t say I love outlining, I don’t. However, it’s worthwhile to spend some time doing this. I can guarantee you will be grateful!
There are many ways of preparing an outline for a story and you need to find out which one works for you. In my case, I prefer simpler outlines. Therefore, I picture my story as a line; my outline, then, is a kind of a dashed line. I set some scenes, maybe ideas for dialogs, or important plot points and other details of the plot of my story. For me, it’s like putting checkpoints in a game, you know you have to get there, but you need to work out how to do it. The thing is that you do know where you’re heading.
Another main aspect here is thinking how you would like to finish your story. Many of my unfinished stories weren’t finished because I didn’t have a “good enough” ending. Believe me! You don’t want to be there without knowing what to do next. That’s why, for the sake of your story, think about it with time. We often put a lot of pressure on ourselves trying to write the perfect ending for our novel. However, it’s better to have a not-perfect ending than a nonexistent one
6. Prepare your Characters
Think of your characters like real people. Imagine they are in a course and the professor asks them to introduce themselves. Try to describe in a couple of paragraphs everything you consider important about them, the characters’ background, what they love and can’t stand, and other significant facts.
Or, if you prefer something more detailed, prepare full character profiles with all the information you think you’ll need for your novel. Prioritize physical and mental descriptions, and you can include their flaws also.
Look for a photo that gives you the feeling of that character, try a celebrity. Cast your characters, that will make everything easier.
7. Get Rid of Distractions
The best thing you can do before starting any of your writing sessions is, undoubtedly, to switch your phone to airplane mode and use a software or an app to avoid distractions while you write on the computer. This will help you make the most of the time you spend writing, be it four hours or 30 minutes.
Thus, from now on you need to start thinking about which habits you’ll leave aside for November. Maybe you’ll have to lock the PlayStation for a while, delete your phone games and forget about checking your Instagram every 5 minutes.
One thing that might work in case it’s difficult for you to turn off your phone or you can’t at all (because of work, family, or any other things) is writing when you know there’s almost no chance of interruptions.
That means a little extra effort, but it works. Try writing at 6 in the morning or even earlier, when almost nobody is online, or at 9 am when the rest of the people are working (in case you’re not working or at work or school yourself, duh!).
8. Prepare your Play List
If you are a big fan of writing while listening to music, then you can’t forget to prepare your Spotify list with hours and hours of the kind of music that inspires you. Some people recommend ambient music while others prefer movie soundtracks.
It might seem insignificant, but it works for some people. Besides, I hate repetitions, so if you prepare, let’s say, 24 hours of music and you randomize it, the chances of listening to the same song twice in a writing session is almost impossible.
Another tip is matching your music to your writing. Last year, for example, I arranged my lists depending on what I was going to write. I prepared an “action list”, a “magic list”, a “sad list”, and if I was going to write a scene in which I needed to convey, sadness, I knew exactly what to listen to.
9. POV – Point of View
Deciding how you want to tell your story is almost as important as the story itself. There are many options. You can choose to write in the first, second, limited third person, third-person omniscient; or even a bit of everything. It’s completely up to you to make that call. Don’t rush, and pick the one that fits perfectly with your novel. This will save a lot of time, and help you have a more complete idea of your story when November’s here.
Check this article for a better understanding of POVs.
10. Meet Other Nano-ers
Everything is better with friends! And there’s no better way to commit to this exciting challenge than doing it with other writers that are going through the same thing. You’ll see that you are not alone in this craziness.
Log in to the official forums and see what’s going on over there. You can share your doubts, meet other participants, and mostly, get involved in the whole frenetic spirit of NaNoWriMo. You’ll find a lot of helpful posts, and why not, a bunch that will only make you procrastinate and waste your time (an explosive combo when you are trying to write a novel in 30 days).
CHECK THIS ARTICLE FOR FAST DRAFTING TIPS.
Summing up…
NaNoWriMo is a unique experience you won’t regret! You can take for granted that you will enjoy a lot of your writing sessions and you will switch your brain to “writing-mode”.
It’s of course a tough challenge that will test your procrastinating nature. Nonetheless, if you start early, and you follow our tips, you’ll be one step closer to make it to the end. Think the effort is worthy. You’ll get to go into your novel in a way you couldn’t possibly do if you’d write it from time to time.
I hope you find this post useful and wish you the best of lucks in November. Now you know my secrets to planning NaNoWriMo, share yours with us in the comments below!
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