Tips To Help Get You Through NaNoWriMo

This is the BIG week, and I don't mean Halloween! But that is a GREAT reason to celebrate!!

I'm talking about the 1st of November. Do you know what that means to THREE HUNDRED THOUSAND of authors?

NATIONAL NOVEL WRITING MONTH

NaNoWriMo....

Every year, thousands of writers make a commit to get at least 50k words completed on their manuscript. That comes out to be a little under 1700 words a day.

1700 words? Easy!

Not so much! It's actually harder than you think. But I have some tips that might help get you through. After all, I'm a three time winner, full time mom of three-teenage boys, wife, full time day job, mom to three four-legged creatures, and friend to many, so I might know a few tips to help you out.

1) Tell everyone you interact with that you are participating!

I mean EVERYONE! This way they know that you are so busy with your free time that you don't have time to go to Macy's for that after Thanksgiving day sale. You have to treat this like it's a work project.

Head on over to the NaNoWriMo website and sign up! This is a peer pressure month for writers who are participating and having peers that you can rely on is a great way to make it through!

I have a few local writer friends who do participate and we have a meet at 9 pm meeting at an all night dinner where we hang out and write, write, write. It's great to have the support.

On the home front I have all planned meals. It doesn't take me long to write 1700 words, so I do have some free time, but it sure makes it easier to have the meals planned ahead. If you have a family and obligations like I do, make sure you have a supportive significant other that will run the kids here and there when need be.

2) Manuscript!

This is why you are here! Now....we only have a few days, so you should know your story/plot.  This is really a pansting activity for me, which means that I have a general story line, and characters, but I have no idea where they are going to take me. So I'm not so strict on an outline, but it's great to have an idea of the beginning, middle, and end.

3) Goals!

If you are like me and have other commitments, you have to manage your time! That is the biggest hurdle I have to overcome. I do this by making a daily realistic goal and this includes the weekends. I might make my daily goal 1500 words, but weekends I might do 2k a day. This is an example so I'm not even sure if the math adds up to 50k, but you get the picture.

4) Write, write, write!

You have to be flexible with your attitude. You might be one of those writers who have to edit as you go....DO NOT DO THIS WITH NANOWRIMO!

Write! Get the story on the page. If you have gotten to the end of your story, go back and add a twist. Don't worry if it doesn't flow because you are going to go back and edit anyways. This is the time to just write what your heart desires. You have to freedom! Isn't it great and doesn't it feel good to have that freedom???

5) Use the NaNoWriMo Website!

Go into the forums. Give support to others that are struggling! Take advantage of adding the words you have completed to your word count ticker!

There is nothing more motivating to getting to your goal then seeing that ticker closer and  closer to 50k! It really sings to my muse!

So what do you say? LET'S DO THIS!! Together!! Come on over to NaNoWriMo and friend me! I will support you!!

Find me on Facebook too! I'm going to be posting inspirational photos daily to help get us through it!!

Fall back in LOVE with writing

Over the past week I have been on vacation at the beach. I try to go a couple of times a year when I know it's my hardest time to get words written on a page. Those times of the year include the dead middle of summer (now) and the deep middle of winter (January/February).

Writing a novel is like being in a relationship/marriage. You have to put into it to get something out of it. Some days we wonder if it's worth it, while other days we know we can't live without it.

What about the bickering?

Oh yes, we bicker with our characters, the direction they want to go is sometimes the direction we don't want them to go. So it's about compromise...just like a marriage. You say you aren't the marrying kind? Well I'm here to tell you that if you are writing a novel. . .you are the marrying kind!

What about the cheating?

Yes! WE all cheat on our novel when we hop over to the edits of the last novel or start to work on that new idea. But then the guilt settles in and you go back to the novel where you bicker with your characters, or don't invest in it, spend time with it.

Think back about the times that the idea of the novel was new and exciting. Think about the history you took in creating those characters. Visit the places the inspired you to write those novels. Just spend a little time in that novel and let the creative flow take you away to the world only you can create.

FALL BACK IN LOVE!

Ray Bradbury on writing

“Love. Fall in love and stay in love. Write only what you love, and love what you write. The word is love. You have to get up in the morning and write something you love, something to live for. (…)

If you want to write, if you want to create, you must be the most sublime fool that God ever turned out and sent rambling. You must write every single day of your life. You must read dreadful dumb books and glorious books, and let them wrestle in beautiful fights inside your head, vulgar one moment, brilliant the next. You must lurk in libraries and climb the stacks like ladders to sniff books like perfumes and wear books like hats upon your crazy heads. I wish you a wrestling match with your Creative Muse that will last a lifetime. I wish craziness and foolishness and madness upon you. May you live with hysteria, and out of it make fine stories — science fiction or otherwise. Which finally means, may you be in love every day for the next 20,000 days. And out of that love, remake a world.”

— Ray Bradbury

It only takes going to the beach a couple times a year, where nothing stresses me out~not the day ins and outs of negative people, negative reviews, naysayers, or the daily grind of work, to find that true love of writing that I have in my heart. 

(Me writing the second novel, A Charming Cure, in the Magical Cure Series)

How do you fall back in love all over again with your writing?