Advice On Getting Ready For National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo)

by hanamigo

posted on 10/21/2009

Writing a novel from start to finish is its own challenge. Can you imagine writing a novel in just thirty days? It can be done, all you have to do is be prepared and do a little bit every day. Before you know it, you'll hit the fifty thousand word mark. You can do it! November's just around the corner. Here are a few ways that can help you get prepared for this one month journey.

Plan Ahead
Before you get started writing, you might want to have an idea of what kind of story that you want to write. Begin with making a few notes on what you would like to happen in the story. This will serve as your outline, and it will be your closest friend for the entire month of November.

You can refer to your outline as you write. It'll be a helpful reminder of just how far you've come and what direction your story will go in. It will be like a roadmap to the finish line.

Pace Yourself
Your goal for this novel is fifty thousand words. As a whole, that might seem like too much for you to do in one month. If you break it down into small chunks, you can pace yourself and complete the novel.

There are several ways for you to break down the workload to make it seem easier. First, you can divide the word count by the thirty days that you have to complete the novel. That means that you have to write about 1,667 words per day for you to meet your goal.

It's very likely that there will be days when you either can't or don't feel like writing. Determine which days you have more free time on and write more on those days. This way, you won't feel as obligated to make up for the days that you've missed. If you have lots of free time on the weekends, then you'll definitely want to take advantage of those days.

Maybe you're more motivated by the number of pages that you write. If you set a personal goal of writing ten pages per day, then by the end of the month, you'll have three hundred pages. You'll definitely want to pay close attention to the number of words that you're writing. Make sure that you don't push yourself too much.

Tell Your Loved Ones
Writers have to overcome all kinds of obstacles during the course of completing a novel. One of the biggest distractions that we face is being distracted by everyday life. Before you begin that novel, tell your loved ones what you're trying to accomplish so they'll know when it's okay to disturb you.

You'll need all the peace and quiet you can get. Good luck and happy writing!

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