I finished Nanowrimo on Thanksgiving. Technically, I got 51,000 words by 6 pm. I wrote 5,900 in between cooking and basting to pretty much finish out my novel.
I started the novel Nov. 1 according to the rules. I had already done prep by three steps pf planning (this is my usual system). I wrote first a logline, then a 15 step sheet of plot points. Then I moved it to a 21 point plot sheet, then to a 60-point plot sheet.
This is how I always prepare. I actually didn’t make up my mind to do Nano until I think Oct. 28 – talk about cutting it close. So the 29th I took my 60 point sheet and entered it in the Inspector in the notes area, then copied each individual point to a different card on the cork board.
Go through Scrivener and make sure I have tweets planned for the month, and at least half of them written.
Open Thingamablog and make sure I have blog entries.
And there you go. I’m ready.
November 1. Take a legal pad and carry it with me. try to get 2-3 pages every day written. Take it home and transcribe to the computer.
Finish the first night and went over the daily word count (this is important the first week of the month!).
But I had a major problem.
A single sentence had completely destroyed most of my outline.
This was the biggest challenge I had now. Fix that sentence and keep going according to my plan – or let the story go where it wanted?
It felt like I stared at my computer for 20 minutes. It probably was about six minutes, which is a very long time to be indecisive.
Go with it. This creates a little stress, because now all my planning work is invalidated.By the time I finished the novel, I’d used about half of the 60 plot points I’d written, discarded 10, and written 20 more.
I think the way I’d planned it, the story would have called for much more words and would have held a slower pace.
Things I’d decided not to do turned out to be the only way you could tell the story.
Things I’d planned on happening later in the story happened earlier.
Some scenes I wrote combined 2-3 of my preplanned plot points.
But here’s the part I left out.
I finished on Novemer 22 – over 51,000 words.
On November 3, my Windows 8.1 got corrupted.
I spent all day on the 3rd trying to fix it. I got zero words written.
On the 4th I refreshed Windows (AAARRRRRGGGGHHHH!!!!), which means that all my programs had to be re-installed. This is why I so emphasize Dropbox and Evernote – I knew I had access to all my passwords, registration numbers, etc. And I know that by saving Scrivener projects to Dropbox (I have nothing on my hard drive by the way – all my music, videos, and documents are all on Dropbox now) and having a separate directory for Scrivener backups on Dropbox, I’ll never lose data again.
I got I think 700 frantically typed words on the 4th. I literally was convinced I’d failed at my chance to complete Nano on Nov. 4th. You’re talking 1667 words a day, so a loss of two days means 3400 words or so to stay on track.
The pressure caused me to have a few days of 2400-3000 words.
“Blazing Glory” stands as the fastest novel I’ve ever written – 51,000 words in three weeks.
Lessons learned:
- Preplan, preplan, preplan – Nano would have been very stressful if I’d just winged it.
- Plan your work, work your plan – This goes without saying.
- Ignore people’s tweets – no kidding, all I saw on the hashtag #NaNoWriMo was one person after another saying, “I’ll never make it”, “Why it’s okay to not win Nano Bit/Lyblahblah.blah”, “I got ten thousand words so far by Thanksgiving”, “Went to the movies”. Ignore that. Writers write. Other people aren’t making it – you’re in it to win it and get published! Congratulate those who are getting it done and tune out the rest, lest their attitude infect yours.
- Be flexible – let your story tell itself. Remember the plot point you put down is subject to change. It’s happened before – under pressure it seems like a disaster. You’re fine, deal with it, move on. My essential idea as written in the logline is intact.
- Don’t let disaster derail you. This novel sounds like the kind of thing I’ll talk about on the Mike Douglas or Dick Cavett show (well, I would if they weren’t dead…)
- Get family members to encourage you. My wife is always very encouraging of my writing, and sometimes brutal about “that part’s not that good” – which really is what I need and not what I want. go with the need part, not the want. Essentialy, my wife is the reason I did Nano. And because of that, I got a novel written in 20-21 days.
Now to contact Merv Griffin and arrange to be on the big variety show interviews.
