A lot of inspiring authors start NaNoWriMo every year, hopeful that this will be the year they finally win NaNo. They try the first day, and get 800 words. The second day is 450. The next day 525, and so on. By the end of the first week, they’re showing a word tally of 4500 words, when they need 8000. By the middle of the second week, they’re resigned to losing NaNoWriMo again.
How do you do it? How do you get and maintain a high word count output that sustains you through finishing NaNoWriMo early?
The answer will surprise you. A few simple steps assure that you will easily maintain a 2000 word a day count, and finish by day 22, when NaNo finally allows you to win.
- Know what you’re going to write. This is key. All you have to do is SEE the scene in your head, and know what your outcome is going to be. “Jim finds the treasure map.” Where? What steps lead to the discovery? What is his anticipated reaction? You know the next scene is giving it to Dr. Livesly – it’s written in your Scrivener cards, and you see it right there.
- Make preparations prior to NaNoWriMo. I prepare my Scrivener project two days before. Last year was my first NaNo, and we didn’t make the decision until two or three days before Nano I was doing it. Once we made decisions, I made a project, added scenes and chapters, then filled out all my cards with one line synopsis of what the expected scene outcome was going to be.
- Look at the goals of the last scene and this scene together. You have to build upon what you’ve written. If you do this, I guarantee few plot holes and every scene you write will be crucial to the story.
- Type quickly. I’m not saying this just so you can get the words on paper before a buzzer sounds. I’m saying this because I read somewhere that when you write rapidly, very often what you write is very high quality, exciting stuff. When your work is exciting, it motivates you to over produce. The story is getting good!
- Write to find out how it happens. NaNo competely frustrated me. I wanted to follow my outline, and my very first scene changed my outline slightly. By day three, it was a complete catastrophe. I had to re-plan the novel on the fly to make sure I kept up pace. My laptop also crashed, leaving me struggling to catch up. It took two days for Dropbox to get enough installed that I was able to start writing again, and this method got me caught up within two days. Between all this, I was tempted to throw in the towel. I think that the two circumstances forced me to allow the book to go the way it wanted. By the end, I was writing more to find out what happened than I was trying to put words on paper. The scene where Abigail shoots at the two bandits was intended to be a standard Western “The Marshal’s girlfriend gets beaten up by the two thugs and he goes berserk” scene. As I wrote it, I was astounded that Abigail was shooting through the door of her house with her ex-husband’s pistol. The novel ended up much better than I’d anticipated.
- Absolutely no editing or fixing mis-spelled words. That’s what December is for. Fix spelling mistakes, then put the book away for a month. During NaNo, let the typos flow, forget looking for exactly the right word. Just get words on paper.
- Good, intense music. Nothing with lyrics. I use a list of movie soundtracks while I write. If a singer starts, click on the bar of your music program to advance the track past the singing.
- Stop questioning yourself. It hasn’t done you any good prior to this. Get words on paper or in Scrivener.
- Stop using Microsoft Word. Word is an ugly program. Its interface doesn’t inspire writing. Dedicated software intended for writers such as WriteWay, YWriter, Scrivener, Liquid Story Binder, or SmartEdit Writer have interfaces written by writers for writers. If Microsoft Word was effective for writing, there’d be no Scrivener.
- Use the Full Screen mode in NaNo. This I think is crucial. I almost never use full screen mode, but during NaNo it made the difference. I was able to get the words in because full screen mode forces you to focus on the story.
- If you have to, get a blocker. There’s several programs that will lock out your email, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. If you simply can’t avoid the temptation to watch videos of kittens, get one of those programs and force yourself to write.
Conclusion
Proper planning prevents poor performance. These may sound like strange rules, but this is exactly the work flow I use when writing my novels. My process changes slightly with NaNo, because now I’m under deadline. Does this seem like too much? What’s it going to be like when you’re a best seller, and your agent and publisher are expecting a complete, edited first draft in 90 days? You’re under exactly the same schedule – 30 days to write your novel.
Get used to it now.
