My NaNo Tricks and Tips

Only a few more days until we few brave and hearty lunge upon our keyboards and hammer out the first word of what will become our November Novels. So I wanted to share what I've learned from doing this twice already. Note that this is only what's worked for me. Your actual experience may vary.

1. Divvy up that word count. This concept has a lot of metaphors attached to it, including the eating of elephants and bird by bird and such. But so I wasn't staring down November 1 thinking, "Holy carpal tunnel syndrome, Batman, that's a freakin' lot of words," I divided that 50,000 words by the 30 days hath November. Rounding up so you won't have to deal with decimals until infinity, that's about 1667 words a day. That's not so bad, is it? That's…about double the length of your average healthy blog post. If you're counting by double-spaced pages, it's approximately 5-6, depending on your font. And you can do that, right? (Just humor me. Say "right," OK?)

2. Plan for down days. Let's get real. November contains Thanksgiving. Cooking. Cleaning. House guests from out of town. Going out of town. And who can forget Black Friday? (Well, I can, but perhaps there are a lot of die-hard shoppers out there who set their alarm clocks and leave their sneakers by the bed so they can get to the sales first.) Some of us are usually the ones who end up doing a lot of the cooking and food shopping and cleaning. If you can't ignore them all and send your family out to a restaurant for the holiday, then you need a plan so you won't stress over your word count on November 29. Plan for some down time. On those days when you feel pumped to keep writing, do it. Don't cripple yourself, mind you – pacing is important – but if you do a little more, then you could be covered for those few days when Aunt Gertie is coming or if you're making your famous chestnut stuffing or when you just plain need a day off.

3. Prewriting. So how much prewriting can you do in advance in NaNo without "cheating?" Everyone I ask who's done this before seems to have a different take on it. Some say they just write backstory. Some come up with a rough plot. Some simply wing it. In my previous two years, I had a character and a bit of story and maybe a pivotal scene niggling around in my head, and then just started typing on November 1. This year, I vacillated among three different ideas I've had for novels. A sequel to my first NaNo novel, which was a story I just loved? (Still editing that one.) A totally different genre, just to see if I could do it? Then I settled on my third idea, which felt more "right" (and no, I won't tell you what it's about.) I decided to go the backstory route…just wrote down the major players and a bit of what happened before the story gets set in motion. Please don't panic if you don't know what you're going to write about yet, or even wake up on November 1 without an idea. Take some deep breaths, quiet your mind, and start typing.

4. It's just a first draft – be as lousy as you want to be. That's one of the great things about NaNo. No editing required, or even expected. No points off for bad spelling or punctuation or grammar. Nobody gives a damn if your participles dangle or if you don't complete a story thread or if the conversation between two characters feels pointless. Unless you choose to post excerpts (there's a place on your "My NaNoWriMo" area if you want to do this), nobody is going to read your novel. They don't even read them when you submit your final for word count verification. Knock that inner critic off your shoulder. Or better yet, write faster than it can read.

5. Take excellent care of yourself. Other activities could be postponed, ignored, or delegated, but try not to skimp on sleep, healthful eating or exercise. This not only will keep you sharper for writing, but will also leave you in better health come December than a lot of NaNo newbies who just go full tilt, skipping the gym and pounding down Red Bulls to make the word count. December is a lousy time to get sick.

I don't want to overwhelm you, so I'll leave it at that for now. I may have other posts closer to "go" time and maybe during November, and Chris Baty (the founder of this shindig) also sends out a weekly pep talk email.

You may want to use these last few days to get familiar with the web site. Think about your story. Or not think about it. It's up to you.