By Erin Nappe (Billiard)

By now, most writers are at least familiar with Chris Baty’s brainchild; write a 50,000-word novel in one month, with the focus on getting the darn thing finished rather than worrying about how good it is. Back in 2004, I was a first-time participant in NaNoWriMo. I decided to dive right in, and I was not fully prepared for the task that lay before me. I started off with the best of intentions, but my intentions didn’t quite carry me far enough.

It took me three tries, but I finally earned the title of NaNoWriMo winner last year. I thought I’d share some of my own wisdom for completing the challenge.

Background Image: Ted Rheingold/Flickr (CC-by-nc)

It’s possible to be busy and still be a winner.

At this time last year, I was teaching four college classes and working as a substitute teacher. When the grading started to pile up, it was tempting to just give up, walk away, throw up my hands and say, “I can’t do it. I’m too busy.” But I didn’t. I made myself a schedule. I told myself I’d devote a certain number of hours each day, no matter what. I blogged and emailed less. I spent less time poking around the Internet. I did very little reading. And I survived! I even spent one weekend visiting a friend, and spent Thanksgiving with my family.

The laptop is your friend.

I don’t know that I would have gotten through it without my trusty iBook. I’m not saying it’s impossible to be a winner without one, but it sure made my life a lot easier. Since my life tends to be mobile, being able to take my novel with me wherever I went helped me reach my goal. Don’t have a laptop? Get yourself a flash drive, pronto!

Another possibility for portable writing is the AlphaSmart. It’s a portable word processor for about $219!

Announce your participation publicly.

If you want to succeed, it’s important to let people know what you’re doing. I posted my progress meter on my blog, and I found that facing the possibility of public shame was sometimes what I needed to keep myself going!

If you don’t have any place else to announce it (or even if you do), make sure you visit our NaNoWriMo forum and let everyone know you’re participating!

Get a writing buddy.

Or two. Or ten. The NaNoWriMo forums can be a great source of support. (Warning… the official forums are very slow right now!) If you find yourself overwhelmed there, you can always post on our forum. You’ll find that the encouragement of other people in the same situation will be invaluable.

Learn to love writing prompts.

There were countless times when I found myself stuck. I’d go online and search the calendar at TC, or look for prompts at other writing sites, and find something that would give me the spark I needed to get going again.

Roll with the changes.

I’m not saying you shouldn’t have a plan or an outline—many people can’t work without them! I’m just saying that you shouldn’t be so committed to anything that you refuse to change it. Because when you’re writing a novel in a month, well… things happen.

For example, I changed point-of-view characters well into my novel. The voice I started out with just wasn’t working for me, so I shifted to a different character and finished the novel in his head. I fretted about it for a while before convincing myself that it didn’t matter—I could go back and change things later. Don’t ever forget that—you can go back and change things later. I typed notes to myself within the text to change this, or fix that, or flesh this out. It’s not going anywhere, and no one ever has to see that first draft but you!

Don’t give up.

Try to keep up with your daily word count goals, but don’t be too hard on yourself if you don’t make it one day. Things happen. You can make it up. It might seem impossible, but I promise you, it’s not. I frequently found myself getting behind, but it’s amazing how much you can make up in a short time when you get on a roll.

Don’t forget food and water.

It sounds silly, but make sure that you’ve stocked up on food and drinks that you like, things you can enjoy while sitting in front of the computer. You’re not going to want to cook much, so try to find things that are easy to prepare. A loving spouse or partner who cooks is always a big help. 😉 I made sure to keep myself stocked up on tea and Dr. Pepper, because that’s what I like. Baker is partial to Vitamin Water. But whatever it is, keep it close!

Do follow the rules.

Particularly if you’re a first time participant, you should follow the guidelines set forth by NaNoWriMo. Start a fresh story instead of trying to rework, re-imagine, or reinvent something you’ve already started. You’ll have more enthusiasm for the project, and therefore more momentum.

Don’t panic.

Your muse smells fear. She doesn’t respond well to it. Keep your cool, and keep going.

Above all, keep reminding yourself that you can do it!

Here’s a quick guide to sites and other resources to help you get through November:

NaNoWriMo

Sign-ups are underway now! Look for local groups, forums by genre, and more!

Zokoutou

In particular, the writer’s tools are quite helpful. I used the word meter and posted it on my blog!

Writing Prompts

There are lots of writing prompts sites, but these are some of the ones I used: Creative Writing Prompts, Writer’s Digest prompts, Toasted Cheese calendar, Story Spinner online.

The Snowflake Method

Several of our editors swear by this method for designing their novel. Check it out!

No Plot? No Problem!

NaNoWriMo creator Chris Baty shares his secrets for a successful novel writing experience. I bought this book last year, and found the advice in it incredibly valuable

WriteBoard and Google Docs

More options for document portability. Both WriteBoard and Google Docs are free, secure sites where you can update your documents from any computer that has web access. Even better, you can share your documents with anyone you want!

By Erin L. Nappe (Billiard)

It’s the middle of November, and for many of us, that means desperately trying to keep up (or catch up) with our goals for National Novel Writing Month.

For anyone who hasn’t already heard about it, NaNoWriMo is a month-long challenge to write an entire 50,000 word (175 page) novel by midnight, November 30. The emphasis is on quantity, not quality, encouraging writers to ignore their inner editors and just get the words out.

In the words of NaNo’s creators, “You will be writing a lot of crap. And that’s a good thing. By forcing yourself to write so intensely, you are giving yourself permission to make mistakes. To forgo the endless tweaking and editing and just create.”

I talked to some previous NaNo winners, asking them to share their wisdom for reaching the finish line with those of us participating for the first time.

Background Image: June Marie/Flickr (CC-by-nc-sa)

Debbie Ridpath Ohi, a Toronto-based freelance writer who was a NaNo winner in 2002, said keeping focused on the goal and looking for support from friends and other writers was vital.

“Whenever I started falling behind my daily wordcount goal, there was always a temptation to give up,” she said. “But one of my reasons for publicly announcing my participation in Nanowrimo was to give myself that extra motivation. Peer pressure is a wonderful thing in a situation like this.”

Ohi also stressed the importance of turning off the critic within. “One of the goals of the whole Nanowrimo experience is to allow yourself to write without self-censoring, to get over those pesky writing blocks. Editing can come later, if that’s what you want,” she said.

S. Jennifer Stewart-Boyd is the municipal liason for Rhode Island, with 75-100 writers participating in her area this year. She was a NaNo winner in 2002 and 2003. She said she tells the writers in her area not to give up in the second week, when most participants are feeling the most fear, doubt and despair.

“If you can make it to thirty thousand words, it gets so much easier. Since I completed it the last two years, I have a lot more confidence now in my ability to see it through, even if I’m behind,” she said.

Stewart-Boyd herself was behind in the middle of the second week, but determined not to give up. “I’m still certain I’ll make it,” she said. “Just before it started this year, I looked over my two previous works, which I’d printed out and put in binders. It felt like a real book, and I thought, ‘You did this, and it’s a great accomplishment. You can do it again.'”

Most important, most of the writers agreed, was to keep going and see it through to the finish.

“Even if you only write a hundred words a day, keep at it, and see it through,” Stewart-Boyd said. “Whatever you do, don’t give up. It helps a lot to talk to others who are going through it, and that’s why we have write-ins, so that the writers will encourage each other, just by being there and going through the same thing.”

In order to motivate herself, Stewart-Boyd said she rewards herself every thousand words or so. “I get a break, to do whatever I want. I play videogames, take myself out, whatever is fun and feels special. I buy this hard-to-find stuff, Republic of Tea’s Writer’s Chai, and I allow myself a glass about every finished page or so. When I haven’t met my goal, I deny myself fun and special things, even make myself eat cold cereal instead of hot food. Every five thousand words, I get ice cream, which is one of my favourite things.

Sebastian Raaphorst, a software developer from Mississauga, Ontario, is in his fourth year as a NaNo participant. He said the key to finishing is to resist going back to delete what you’ve written.

“If you do that, you’ll almost certainly give in to temptation again and again, and you’ll fall far behind. Save the refinement for December 1st, or even better, January 1st when you’ve finished apologizing to your friends and family for ignoring them for a month.

Even worse, Raaphorst said, is resisting the urge to completely scrap your novel and start over.

“It was particularly bad this year, and by day six, my novel very nearly found its way into my PowerBook’s trash can; however, I forced my way through it, and cranked out a huge wordcount on days seven and eight, and everything fell into place: the plot, the characters, the dialogue, etc… Perseverance is the key!”

Rich Thomas, a Customer Support Engineer from San Jose, California, said the hardest part is writing every day. His advice is that it’s important to know when to be hard on yourself, and when to loosen up.

“Sometimes you need to keep going even if it is not going well. Sometimes it’s just a matter of sticking it out,” he said.

Thomas’s final piece of advice: “done is beautiful.”

“Every once in a while you will need to just write something. No matter how bad it is right now, if you keep on going, you will write something good later. That’s what your goal really is.

Megan Hoffman, a student at the University of Delaware, is a first-time participant. She said that for her, the biggest challenge is staying close to the computer.

“I go home maybe twice a month to do laundry. I visit my friends for the weekend in other states. It’s so easy just to forget about the novel for a few days, and I really have to work hard to get back into writing regularly,” she said.

She uses the peer pressure/competition method to keep herself motivated. She also carries around paper to jot down notes for herself during the day.

“You have to budget time and have things plotted out in advance. It makes a world of a difference,” Hoffman said.

Stewart-Boyd said that reaching the halfway point without giving up was an important factor in finishing.

“In 2002, I was afraid to tell anyone what I was doing, even my closest friends — even the person I was dating — because I didn’t know if I was up to the challenge,” she said. “But by halfway through the month, I knew I could do it, and I told everyone. After that, I knew I had to finish, because people I knew were pulling for me to do it.”

Some final words of encouragement from Ohi:

• One challenge is the temptation to let Real Work interfere with one’s dedication to Nanowrimo. Fortunately I got over that pretty quickly.
• Don’t do housework. Amazing how much extra writing time you can get that way.
• The microwave is your friend.
• Keep records of your daily wordcount and cumulative wordcount.

For Ohi, the best motivation was to “think ahead about how wonderful it will be to have actually Finished A Book.”

“It’s incredibly easy to start writing a book, much more difficult to finish one,” she said. “So what if it’s not the best quality? At least you’ve got one under your belt; you can now start editing, or move on to your next project.”