Thursday night after a couple of glasses of wine some serious consideration, I signed up to participate in NaNoWriMo. I have pledged to write a 50,000-word novel during the month of November. That’s a little over 1,600 words per day. I wrote a post on Facebook questioning my sanity as I considered signing up and an old friend replied, “Not insane. Projects without deadlines never get finished. Do it.” That sounded like wisdom to me.
I’ve had these characters tumbling around in my brain for quite some time now. I know how they meet. I know their flaws and their strengths. But I haven’t given them the time to tell their story. When signing up for NaNoWriMo, there is a section to tell a little something about the novel you’ll be writing. One of the boxes to fill in was genre. I realized I’m not sure if this book will be chick lit, romance, or literary fiction. The last one is a bit of a long shot, I’ll admit.
Between now and November first I have a lot of preparation to do. I’m thinking of this as a triathlon for my mind and I have about ten days to train. So here’s my training plan:
1.) Cleaning out this rats’ nest I call a workroom. It used to be the nursery (note the soothing blue and yellow paint). Now it’s my workroom, craft room, store room, and a place where stuff that has no home collects. It’s time to throw some stuff away!
2.) I’ll be scaling back on my blogging. I’ve been in a rut lately and the posts I’ve written haven’t been on par with some of my earlier entries like Mankie and this Sleepy Time. I’m not giving up blogging entirely. I’ll be publishing NaNoWriMo updates and occasional blog posts. Blogging has motivated me to write down some wonderful moments about boys as well as some of my own childhood memories. So I won’t stop entirely, but I won’t feel compelled to post something just because I haven’t done it in a while. If I don’t have anything to say, I won’t scrounge for something.
3.) NaNoWriMo has published Thirty Question Character Survey. I’ll be filling these in over the coming days to help flesh out my characters.
4.) This novel-writing thing is going to require me to spend a lot of time sitting on my butt. If I’m not careful, I’m going to pack on a ton while pounding away on my laptop. If I’m going to do this, I want to look triumphant not mountainous when I’m finished. Besides, my best ideas usually come when I’m running or doing yoga. I intend to keep get back to exercising regularly.
5.) I’m stocking up on coffee and coffee filters. I can’t risk skipping a day of writing simply because there is no java in the house.
6.) Finally, I’m going to set up a system for backing up my writing regularly. Losing thousands of words to a computer crash would definitely send me over the edge.
So that’s my plan. How about you? Have you ever considered NaNoWriMo? Are you doing it this year? Any preparations? If you’ve participated, do you have any advice?
I did it last year. I flamed out after 29K words. I had 3 thinsg working against me. I live in Atlanta but was traveling back and forth to Houston Texas every week. Last November we moved into a new house. Finally, I decided at the last minute what to write.
ReplyDeleteThis time, I know what I'm contributing to NANOWRIMO. I've written about 7 pages of character backstory/outline.
I'll write every day even if it's just a few paragraphs or 5k words.
Looking forward to what you do, vic
I've completed NaNo twice!
ReplyDeleteOne tip: try to hit about 2000 words a day for the first week. That way you'll build up some wiggle room if life gets difficult.
Tip 2: arrange with your husband and your work NOW to have the last day in November 100% free to write; that's the day that everyone uses to catch up on their words.
Tip 3: the point is not for it to be good; the point is just to hit the 50,000 word mark. Just keep writing, even if it sucks (and trust me, some days it will SUCK).
My final tip: when you're stuck, throw in an explosion or some ninjas. Or both! Your story may not lend itself to ninjas, but the idea holds: do whatever would be the most disruptive thing at that moment. You can usually get several thousand words out of it.
The first time I completed NaNo I didn't sign up until the day before. And the only thing I knew going in was that my main character was tied up and blindfolded in a warehouse, with no idea how he got there.
I attempted last year on my own but couldn't keep up with it. It was not wasted time though. I got a lot of crap out of my system and have used some of it through this year on a new book - refining it. Sounds like you have a plan! Good luck!
ReplyDeleteGood for you, girl! You sounds pumped and prepared!
ReplyDeleteI did NaNo last year and finished it. I have a couple of tips for you. Since you get most of your ideas during exercise, you could invest in a small voice recorder, then put them in there, and play it back when you sit down to write. When inspired, it usually takes me about 20 undisturbed minutes to put out the 1600+ words needed to meet the daily quota.
ReplyDeleteDO NOT EDIT AT ALL. Resist the urge. The point is to get the story down. Editing is what you do after NaNo is done, seriously (says the chick with last year's NaNo novel in its 2nd round of editing, LOL).
I use a small external hard drive to back up everything. it's got a lot of room on it, and I can plug it in to any computer and use it. It's pocketable, too.
Use these last few days to do any extensive research you think you might need to do. it gets killer to keep a story going if you don't know much about the setting, etc.
Good luck and see you at the finish line!
I'm not officially signing up, but I'm using the concept to push myself to finish a project that's been hanging on way too long.
ReplyDeleteGood Luck!
Mbeng Comfort Nabi (Comfort1)
ReplyDeleteI am indeed very grateful for the organizers of Novel writing month. It gave me the platform to do what I have always wanted to do for decades. It was indeed a significant accomplishment for me.I look forward to greater projects being born as a result of this. Thank you team so much.Sincerely yours Comfort1