Nanowrimo 2011

It's November, which means it's NaNoWriMo time. I personally haven't had much luck with NaNoWriMo, possibly because I attempted it a couple times in college and November was probably the worst month to attempt to write a novel, what with Thanksgiving break and end-of-semester projects and all. But this year, I literally have nothing to do during November, so I figured I should go for it.

So how does one write an average 1,667 words a day for 30 days in a row? Actually, better question, how does a perfectionist write 1,667 words/day for 30 days? What appeals to me about NaNoWriMo is that you have to just go for it. No one can actually write a 50,000 word novel and have it ready for publishing on December 1st, so there's no need to worry it being perfect. I had a creative writing teacher once tell me that it's okay to write that bad first draft, and with NaNoWriMo all you really have time for is that bad first draft.

Some other tips I've heard over the years that I'll try to follow:

Set a goal and stop when you meet it: I read this on a writer's blog; he set his goal at 2 new pages a day. Some days he would be on a roll and didn't want to stop writing, other days he felt he could barely get past a paragraph. But no matter what, he would get to the end of the second page and stop mid-sentence if necessary. With NaNoWriMo, you have to average 6 double-spaced letter-sized pages to reach 50,000 by the end of the month, so I think I will adopt the "write 6 pages and stop" method, at least until it's the last week and I only have 10,000 words written.

Write in the same place and at the same time every day: This is a studying tip I've heard, but I don't see why it wouldn't work for writing as well, it helps make writing more habitual, and maybe also helps get you over the "getting started" hump that I know I feel whenever I write or draw anything. Now with 1,667 words to write a day, I'm sure I'll have to write when and where I can just to keep up, but I will try to have a "writing hour" (or two) every day at the same time.

No editing until the daily goal is reached: As I said before, NaNoWriMo is a perfectionist's worst nightmare since there's simply no time to even attempt to perfect it. So my solution is to not even try, I'll write my 1,667 words and then maybe I'll think about going back and changing some phrases.

Have fun: Self-explanatory.

Okay, time to get writing!