Sebby's Guide to Winning NaNoWriMo

[vorpal.livejournal.com]

As a three time (and well on my way to a four time) NaNoWriMo winner, I thought I'd share my golden rules of NaNo with you in hopes that it might help some of you.

Rule 1: Set a daily word count, and force yourself to write it.

You need to write 1667 words a day to win. If you can't do this, it's very simple: you will lose. So every day, even if you don't feel like it, you hate your novel, and the idea of prying your eyeballs out with a butterknife seems more appealing than cranking out 1667 words, force yourself to sit down and do it. It doesn't matter if it's crap. Some of it will be crap. A lot of it might be. You can rewrite it later, if you like, but right now, if you don't write it, you'll end November novel-less.

If a day arises where you know you will absolutely not be able to write your 1667 words, then compensate for it in advance. You know that "I'll make up for it tomorrow" is probably going to end up being an empty promise, and once you're behind, it becomes incredibly difficult to catch up. Trust me. Last year, I let myself skip a couple days, and I barely crawled across the finish line. It was the worst NaNo of my life.

If, for some reason, you cannot compensate in advance, then make absolutely sure that you do so the next day.

If you cannot do so the next day, well then, you're more than likely screwed :D. I've seen far too many friends succumb to putting things off, and by day 15 they've written 5000 words and they still cling to the hopes that they'll finish. It's certainly not impossible, but if you couldn't write more than 5000 words in the first two weeks, you're unlikely to have the commitment to write another 45000 in the next two weeks.

Rule 2: Balloons and other toys are your friends.

Keep lots of fun things around for you to play with. I buy myself an assortment of Christmas lights, balloons, glow-in-the-dark apparrel, etc... prior to NaNo. When lack of inspiration strikes, I find myself sitting glumly in front of my laptop in the sea of balloons that is my bedroom, blowing on party noisemakers and wearing glow-in-the-dark bunny ears while hypnotically swaying to the blinking of lovely Christmas lights, and I realize that simply writing a novel in a month may not be quite as insane as originally predicted.

And, even if a sea of balloons doesn't inspire you, it makes doing anything other than lying on your bed and working on a novel so incredibly inconvenient that you're likely to churn out those words.

Rule 3: Give yourself permission to hate your novel.

The only year that I liked my novel while I was writing it was during the first year, and looking back, man, did it suck. The following two years, I was convinced that my novels were the most vile literary abominations that had ever cursed the face of the earth, but reading back on them after NaNo had completed and the resultant medication had kicked in, they were actually quite good.

During NaNo, you'll never fail to surprise yourself with how horrible a writer you can be. Your novel will be filled with tacky, cheesy garbage, but it will likely also be filled with some real gems, and you can weed through it all in December and figure out which parts are just so horrid that they'll cause you public humiliation if they ever got into the wrong hands and delete them then.

Rule 4: Resist the week one scrap.

Every year, after the first six to eight days have passed, I've nearly burst into tears at how much I hated my novel. It wasn't too late, I reasoned, to delete the whole piece of garbage and start over. And somehow, every year, I resisted - perhaps for fear of coming across as a far-too eccentric tempermental artist. And, consistently, week two went astoundingly better. Suddenly, my characters gained dimension and I lost my urge to punch them in the mouths for their obnoxious and completely witless dialogue. My plot developed a life of its own and moved in new, exciting, and completely unpredicted directions. I regained my love of writing.



For those of you lagging behind, it's still not too late for you to catch up, but unless you want to end up really behind, it's going to take huge amounts of determination and commitment. I'm not being pessimistic here, but you don't make it through NaNo without a whole lot of perseverance, and if you aren't able to muster that up, you'll find yourself on November 28th with 10000 words and no hope in completing short of risking six consecutive nervous breakdowns and possible institutionalization.

Of course, 10000 words is better than nothing, and something to be proud of, but let's go for the gold here, people.

So sit down, get your asses off of LJ, and start writing! I've got 31,196 more words to go... how about you?

Comments

[onceupon.livejournal.com]

Rule 1: Set a daily word count, and force yourself to write it.

I'm just going to disagree on this one.

*grin*

This is my third year doing NaNo. Right now I have two 50+ word manuscripts sitting on my hard drive and at the end of the month, I know I'll have a third.

However, I have a VASTLY different approach than you. Mine is a bit more, never give up, never surrender.

Right now, on day 8, I only 4,500 words or so. But, even though I have a LOT of words to make up, I'm okay with that. I'm invested in the process and I know -- because I've done it this way each time before -- that as the end of November approaches I will be filled not only with more and more urgency but more and more ideas. Last year I wrote half of my novel in the last four days of November. I had ten thousand word days. It was an amazing roller coaster and it produced some really interesting stuff that I might not have thought of before.

I don't hate my novel either. It may not be my favorite thing ever -- my own words rarely are -- but I can't summon up any passion to work on something that I hate. I've scrapped things before and I've gone through three ideas (just in the idea stage though) already this November.

Going for the gold is awesome and it's cool to share what works for you, but I'm always really careful not to discourage people who ARE behind or who have a different method of approaching things. Right now, I've probably got the lowest word count of anyone in our write-in family and I'm the ML! But the key is to stay energized and find a way that works for you. Often, more often than not, having only 5,000 words by the fifteenth is not a sign of a lack of commitment -- it's a sign that there are a million other things going on and the voices in your head are not louder than the noise of overtime at work and exams at school and deaths in the family and pets throwing up on the carpet, etc, etc.

I'm really just trying to put forth an alternate viewpoint here. Gettting through most of the month with not a huge amount written.... That's not a death knell. Getting to a point where you BELIEVE you will never catch up is the death knell.

[vorpal.livejournal.com]

I hear you completely, and appreciate that this perspective might work for some people - especially those with proven NaNoWriMo track records; however, I think for the majority of people, you need to set attainable, consistent goals for yourself in order to succeed. Keep in mind that only 12-13% of participants completed NaNoWriMo last year and the year before. I saw far too many of my friends lamenting around the midpoint that they'd written 5000 words and were determined to make it. None of them did. If you can't seriously sit down and write more than an average of 300 words per day, what makes you think you'll be able to pick up the momentum and write 3000 for the remainder of the month unless you're absolutely dedicated to the project and you perform well under stress? If the earlier part of the month only allowed you, because of priority planning and time commitments, to write 300 words a day, I feel pretty confident that with 95% of participants, the later part of the month won't miraculously change and allow for 3000.

NaNo requires a serious, dedicated effort. Writing 50000 words in a month is not an easy task. It can be a fun task if you do it right (right will obviously differ from person to person), but blind optimism and hopes and dreams alone does not a successful NaNoer make.

I guess I'm rather annoyed with watching people fall behind because they just didn't "feel inspired" or "feel like writing", and then become all victimized later on. It doesn't matter if you feel like writing. If you felt like writing, you'd already have written several novels during the course of your life outside of NaNo.

I'm confident that you'll finish, because you've run the race before and you know how to pace yourself - however, keep in mind to a NaNo newbie, NaNoWriMo can seem very daunting and overwhelming. For those who are going to have difficulty staying focused and dedicated, I think that in most cases, daily, attainable goals are probably the best strategy to avoid getting left behind.

It's like quitting smoking, IMO. Saying you can go just one day without writing is like saying you can have just one cigarette. The next thing you know, half the pack is empty or half the month is gone and you're utterly discouraged.

[gooberfishbowl.livejournal.com]

I guess I'm rather annoyed with watching people fall behind because they just didn't "feel inspired" or "feel like writing", and then become all victimized later on.

Preach it!

[greekgladiators.livejournal.com]

I completely agree with you. Even though I'm nearly halfway in word count, I still am doubting if I'll make it, just because I am one of those people who are lazy and tend to get bored with a project somewhere halfway through. And believe me, many of my friends are the same that way. I set myself a word count of 2000 each day, had to force myself the first days to write but now it seems to be going a bit better and I know that if I hadn't forced myself the first days I would most likely have given up already.

Love the whole balloons paragraph :D

[kiandra-fire.livejournal.com]

This is just an idea, and I don't know if anyone else tossed it out. As a daily goal for myself, I wanted to do 2,500 words a day. I even went total-dork on myself and made a calendar, where I write my goal in the bottom right-hand corner of each box and by how many words I fall short or excel. In the upper corner, I write how many words I have at midnight each day, and how many words I've written in that twenty-four hour period. I ALWAYS try to write 2,500 words, even if I'm ahead, because I know if I do well now, then I can slow down if/when I hit writers' block or something.

So far it's working out really well. But I haven't had too much trouble churning out stuff.

I love your idea about the glow in the dark stuff and balloons. I've just been relying on sugar and turning off the TV, but I'm gonna have to try your idea next year.

[vorpal.livejournal.com]

Awesomeness! Did you get that Excel spreadsheet that someone here designed, where you enter your wordcount on each day, the number of hours you spent, and your morale, and it calculates your typing speed, estimated number of hours left, etc...? It gives you a bunch of graphs and charts and kicks complete ass.

And LOL... I love NaNo for all the props I buy... It's so much fun and it totally gets me all excited and inspired! I couldn't have finished NaNo last year if it weren't for my Christmas lights. Every day I dreaded working on the novel of doom, but looked forward to sitting in the dark with the Christmas lights on, and that's all that kept me going.

Yes, I am terminally insane :D, but it's fun.

[greekgladiators.livejournal.com]

Any idea where that Excel file can be found nowadays?

*grins* I'm not sure my men would agree with putting up Christmas lights yet, but hey, maybe I'll do that next year as well :D

[gooberfishbowl.livejournal.com]

Most excellent post :) Echoes my sentiments exactly.

[vorpal.livejournal.com]

*grins*... Thank ya! I'm glad to know that I'm not completely insane, or, at least, not entirely alone in my insanity!

[lesser-gods.livejournal.com]

Thank you! Your post was just exactly what I needed today. Dammit, I *will* finish my two thousand words for today. I *will* keep everything I've written, even though it sucks ass. I *will* embrace the insanity!

[vorpal.livejournal.com]

*huge grins*
Go, you! You can do it!

[winters-queen.livejournal.com]

Last year, I pulled a 4 day stint and wrote 12k to finish with a few hundred over the finishing line and by the time I was finished, my head hurt from concentrating on it so much.

But I did it. Right now, I'm behind, but it's a managable as I keep it on my jump drive and take it to work to do during slow periods. So I may be behind but I'm at least doing it during the day and keeping up a steady (somewhat) pace.

[saoba.livejournal.com]

I'm sitting pretty at just over 19K this afternoon, despite a clue-free moment last night that resulted in me

1) Realizing one of my files, all 2300 words of it, was now gone. Poof.

2) Me spending several minutes in a heartfelt fit of profanity.

3) Me then (having had the good sense to do a print out before the file was lost) retyping the entire damn file fron the printout.

Because, you know, things will happen and toast will land jelly side down on the cat. If I'd been only on track or behind, and it was my first Nano (as opposed to my third) I can see throwing my hands up in despair and quitting.

Being ahead gave me the edge I needed to swear, shrug, and fix the problem.

[starbrow.livejournal.com]

Ehh, I'm fucked, then.

[pookanutter.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the advice. It's my first year at NaNoWriMo and I set a daily goal of 1700 a day to finish. I haven't quite hit it, but I'm not that far off target, maybe 2000 or so. I was surprised to find that when you sit down and actually start writing, 1700 words a day is really not as much as you might think. ;D

Thanks for the encouragement and the tips!

[devrat.livejournal.com]

When lack of inspiration strikes, I find myself sitting glumly in front of my laptop in the sea of balloons that is my bedroom, blowing on party noisemakers and wearing glow-in-the-dark bunny ears while hypnotically swaying to the blinking of lovely Christmas lights.

That's awesome! Seriously, I want to see a picture of your work area. Funny headgear is the best thing ever when it comes to putting me in writing mode. Chocolate helps as well.

In '02 and '03 I tried to get out as much as possible every time I sat down to write. It worked, but this year I had the plan to sit down every day and write 2K no matter what.

It has not worked so far. Very few things in my life have a set schedule, including writing, apparently. It's depressing, but as long as I win, I'll be happy.

<33333333

[notfudge.livejournal.com]

I'm managing 2,000 a day, so hooray! for me. But thank you for your pep talk.

I now have an almost irresistible urge to go and buy some balloons.
Thank you!

Loving' Rule 2

[ivymere.livejournal.com]

Amidst the depression I've sunk into (and it's not ONLY because of nano), your rule #2 really made me smile and cracked me up...especially the bunny ears part.

Thanks also for your peppy comment on my sorrowful whine several entries prior to this one.

**off to mope some more and procrastinate**