Advice On Participating In NaNoWriMo

by hanamigo

posted on 10/29/2009

Think writing a novel is hard? Try writing one in thirty days.

Join a Group
Pick a time, pick a place, and get to work. Writing with a group of other people with the same goals will help motivate you to keep writing every day. Meeting regularly can be useful as you can get ideas as well as encouragement.

You don't have to feel like you're the only person writing. During National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, you should have no trouble finding like-minded people trying to accomplish the same thing as you are.

Type, Don't Write
I know that there are plenty of old fashioned writers out there that prefer to write out their entire story on paper first and then type it up; I'm one of those people. You don't have time for that.

You've only got thirty days to write this book, and you don't want to use up all of your time writing it down then typing it up later. That's an easy way to burn out and trying to catch up can become extremely stressful.

If you're concerned about losing your data, make sure that you save often and email it to yourself. Make multiple copies of it, and save it in different places if you need to.

Keep It Simple
Your time constraint will keep you from lingering too long on a single scene or a single chapter. This is your chance to put your skills to work. During this time, your abilities as a writer will be challenged.

You will need to tell the story that you want in a quick, concise way, so you'll want to stick to using brisk language. Less is more. Feel free to rely on dialogue.

Edit Later
Save editing for another time. Right now, you just need to give yourself permission to be as sloppy with your this story as possible. Really let loose on the page. Remember that a first draft is sloppy.

Don't be a perfectionist; if you're unsatisfied with the way you wrote something, leave it alone. Make a note of it and move on. Editing should be done at another time, after you've had time to get away from your work.

Stopping to edit what you've written only makes you more aware of mistakes that you've made, and that will keep you from being productive. Try not to read what you've written unless you need to read where you've left off to help you get started writing at the beginning of the day.

After thirty days have passed, you'll feel better as a writer whether you've successfully finished a manuscript or not. Being able to focus on a single project is an amazing feat for a writer to accomplish, and you'll walk away from the experience with even sharper skills. Now there isn't anything that you can't accomplish as a writer.

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