Tips for Winning NaNoWriMo

The weather in Texas is finally cooling to a temperature worthy of a light sweater and a big umbrella.

Family members have begun asking what we’re doing for Thanksgiving. (The answer, as always, is: “Staying home, but y’all are welcome to visit.”)

Chaos has begun to reign at my day job, because holiday and pre-holiday are basically the be-all-end-all in my industry.

All this means one thing: It’s almost November, and it’s time for NaNoWriMo.

For the uninitiated, NaNoWriMo is the National Novel Writing Month. The idea is to write 50,000 words of a novel (most completed novels are much longer than that) in the month of November. It’s the one time a year when writing feels like a community event, even though it’s still just you and your laptop/pen/chisel. It’s a great motivator if you are trying to find your writing rhythm, and need the pressure to push you to finish a project.

For me, the timing can be difficult. I often begin new manuscripts in January and September. I have no reason for this other than it’s what happens and my brain is fresh then apparently. I have a couple days left to decide if I’m diving into NaNo this year, but in the meantime, I’ll share some helpful resources to get you going.

If you feel like you need to have a game plan going in, that’s good! Chuck Wendig has an excellent post on the different types of plotting. I consider myself a pantser, but I use several of the techniques he mentions in that article. (Tent posts FTW!) It’s worth reading and thinking about to help corral your thoughts. This post on determining if your cat is plotting against you is not as helpful, but is a pretty great distraction.

Routine is important during NaNo. While I’m the daily word count kind of person, not everyone is. That’s okay. However, you need to figure out what’s going to work for you, both during NaNo and for the long haul. Lit Reactor has a few tips on how to set a writing routine.

The first week of NaNo is always fun. There are even parties and they serve food and sometimes booze. It’s week two when you may begin to question if you picked the right project, because as you edge near 20K you’re in need of some hearty conflict. The answer is here, in the words of Stephen King:

You may wonder why you see people come back to NaNo again and again. Or why you hear of people who keep writing after the rejections pile up. They do it to improve. I’m a firm believer that you can’t fix what isn’t on the page.

My last bit of prep is about the mindset of NaNo. The idea that you should keep writing even as you question yourself. Every writer wonders if she or he is any good, and the only way we get to be good is by writing. So stick with it.