What Stops You from doing NaNoWriMo?

There's a lot of division among writers whether it's being a panster or a plotter to whether or not to participate in NaNoWriMo.

I'm a supporter of NaNoWriMo. I love the shared community. I love knowing that other people are suffering just as I am. Er, that doesn't sound very nice. Sorry. I meant to say that writing is a very solitary activity. During the month of NaNo, I see dozens of posts on my social media every day by other writers sharing their joys at achieving their daily word count or sharing their woes at getting stuck on a scene or a stubborn character.

What it comes down to is this: I am not alone.

But what stops you from NaNo-ing?

I've done my best to participate every year, but I admit I'm not exactly successful every year. Some years I barely made it half-way to the 50k word count goal. I don't like to say I gave up, but I did have to postpone my novel writing for a while. And sometimes there are several reasons for this.

Work: Having a full-time job is a difficult challenge for a person wanting to make a career out of writing, or for that person who just wants to commit a month for this personal challenge. Unfortunately, you can't call in sick to your day job just so you can stay home and write the day away. Nor can you call in sick because you spent the entire night writing instead of getting the sleep that you need. You have commitments to your day job, especially if that's what pays the bills. I remember that was a great struggle for me when I was working at my job as Assistant Manager at Waldenbooks.

Solution: I can only offer tips that worked for me. I'm sure there are lots of different ways to tackle this obstacle. There were three different times I found that I could squeeze in some writing. If I woke early in the morning, I could get an hour or so of writing time in. If I was too lazy or too tired to wake early (I am not a morning person!), I'd take my notebook to work and I'd write during my lunch break. I'd only get a half-hour of writing, but I might be able to squeeze in 300-500 words. Maybe more if I wrote fast. And if my co-workers decided on that day to interrupt my lunch break with help on the sales floor (and that did happen frequently), then I'd leave my writing for night. Typically (before I had kids) my favorite time to write was at night anyway. I could easily get a good 2 hours of writing time every night.

“What do you want? What are you willing to give up to get it? Writing requires you make sacrifices. Be prepared to work hard to be a writer.”~Sandra Brown

Family: Family members can either be the best supporters of a writer or the worst obstacles. My family is both. My husband encourages me to write. However, he hates the month of November because of NaNo. He's become my arch nemesis when it comes to participating in this challenge. Apparently during the past years, I become very emotional about failing to meet my daily word count goals. I'm sure I've given a thousand excuses for not being able to write for some reason or other (I am creative with my excuses) and he just got tired of hearing about how I couldn't do it. And he's of the opinion that when you write, you should do your best on the first draft so you don't have more work to do later rather than writing crap just to have words on the page that you can edit later. But, he's not a writer, so what does he know anyway? Right?

Solution: Don't bother talking to family about NaNo. If they aren't writers, they won't understand the compulsion to get words on paper to complete this challenge. Instead, chat with other writers about any woes or joys you're feeling about your novel. There are tons of other writers out there going through the exact same things you're going through. Sometimes they can help motivate you better than your loved ones.

“All writers have this vague hope that the elves will come in the night and finish any stories.”~Neil Gaiman

Children: Children deserve a category of their own! As much as I love my kids, they also drive me crazy when I'm trying to write. Just as I sit down at my computer, they are at my knee asking for a drink or something to eat or maybe complaining that one of the others was hitting and I have to stop my writing (before I even began) to settle disputes or negotiate with them for a few minutes of writing time before I need to jump up to see to their needs. Of course, my children are young, I have three between the ages of 4 and 8. The last several years have been significantly challenging when it came time for writing especially NaNo. Sleepless nights with babies, changing diapers, spending time with homework and learning ABC's. There are so many things children need that parents must provide. And my kids have always come before my writing, but I admit now that they're a bit older, I just tell them to get their own drinks if they're thirsty. I couldn't do that a few years ago and I'm enjoying the novelty of self-sufficiency.

Solution: If you have the resources, whether its family, friends or paid services, getting a babysitter for a few hours of writing time is well-deserved. If not, (and I join those ranks!) writing early in the morning before they wake or late at night after they go to sleep is another option. Writing during the day has nearly vanished for me. I used to get in some writing during naptimes. Occasionally, if I see they are immersed in play I might be able to quietly open my laptop without them noticing. It never seems to last long. But remember, these times will change as children grow older. I hear many of my writer friends talk about the hours of free writing time they have now that they're children are teenagers. It won't be long before my kids are grown. I'm happy to keep my writing at morning or night and enjoy my kids during the day. They grow too fast anyway.

"There is nothing to writing. All you do is sit down at the typewriter and bleed."~Ernest Hemingway

Self-Doubt: This is the worst! The absolute hands-down worst! I can handle any obstacles a job, family and children can throw my way but when it comes to my own brain I sometimes come out as a pile of poo on the floor. Writers are their own worst critics. No one can criticize my writing like me! And that is the number one thing that stops me from completing NaNo. I'll start out on a buzz thinking my new novel is going to be the greatest thing I ever wrote and usually after the first week I start wondering who would ever want to read this crap!

Solution: I know its tough, but you have to turn off your internal editor! Its hard for me, too! Usually, I like to go back to yesterday's writing to get back into the scene and that's when I notice the inevitable grammar or spelling errors that I cringe at. I'll try to fix a few, but if I don't stop myself, I'll soon be editing the whole piece instead of moving forward to write more words. And I do my best to not to wonder about what readers will think about my work. That just stops me in my tracks! My mind goes completely blank with fear and I have no words left. So when I NaNo, I'm writing only for my own enjoyment. I'm not thinking about readers or sales. I'm not thinking if I can manage to pay any bills with the end result of this month's efforts. I'm thinking only of having fun while I write. That's the only way I can finish.

"This is how you do it: You sit down at the keyboard and you put one word after another until its done. It's that easy, and that hard." --Neil Gaiman

Preparing for NaNoWriMo

Every November for the last few years I've participated in National Novel Writing Month, otherwise known as NaNoWriMo. For those of you who might not have heard of it, here's a brief description from their website:

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought fleetingly about writing a novel.

I finished the first year, but the last few I fell behind. Although, my novels were all completed after the deadline and some went on to publication. Even though I didn't finish during the 30 day marathon, I did complete a good chunk of the story to keep me satisfied.

This year, I'm doing things differently.

I want to finish!

At heart, I'm a pantser. That means I write by the seat of my pants with no idea where my characters are taking me or what scene will unfold next. Typically, I enjoy this writing style since when I begin writing my story, I feel like I'm also a reader eager to learn what happens next. The bad side of this is when inevitably my characters start to wonder what happens next, too. When they don't know, I don't know. And then I'm stuck. Every time this happens, I usually set the story aside for a bit, confident that my subconscious will send me some communication to help me resolve whatever issues my characters are facing. This could happen within days or sometimes weeks. For some stories, it might be months.

Difficult to keep to a deadline when I'm at the mercy of my subconscious. I think my muse might have ADHD. She likes to bounce around from idea to idea a lot.

There have been times that I have the good fortune to have a nearly complete outline already filled out in my head. On those rare occasions, I write out all the information I know about the characters, plot, scenes, conflict, anything and everything I know. Then on my writing journey, if my writing starts to falter, I can easily check out my notes to find out what happens next and I can take off again from there.

That happy incident occurred in January of this year. It was a dream-inspired story. I filled in a few gaps and got to writing. I wrote 36,000 words in one week! Since my normal word count on a good day is about 2k a day, that was an amazing feat for me! By the end of 3 weeks, I had the rough draft completed.

I sang! I danced! I celebrated!

And then I had to take a month off from writing to clean my house since I had completely ignored all the household chores in my obsessive drive to write that story.

I'm crossing my fingers that I can accomplish that magnificent feat twice in one year.

In preparation, I'm giving my house a thorough cleaning to get ahead of the mess that is to come. Unlike some other fortunate writers, the members of my household don't pick up any of my slack, so if I don't do it, it just doesn't get done. Yes, I've tested this theory by just not doing the dishes. After the cupboards were emptied, and still no one bother to lift a finger to clean anything, I knew it was a hopeless case. If I want my husband to help out around the house, I pretty much have to move out so I don't see the horrible mess that remains in my absence.

Okay, back to preparation.

The actual preparation of my novel is pretty much the same as I've done before. I write down every little detail that I know about the story and the characters. As much as I can. It doesn't even have to be in order. Sometimes I write notes on the middle first, then the ending, then the beginning. I hop around randomly as I fill in my notebook. After its all written out, then I can go back and try to rearrange it to make sense of it all. Sometimes I add a few lines of dialogue or maybe a line or two of description that pops into my brain. If I need to do some research about anything, I add what I'll need to find out. If its important to the story, I'll start researching right away. But if it pops up during the actual writing, I'll make note of it and complete the necessary research later. I don't want anything to take me away from my writing, no distractions, no browsing the internet in search of the correct make and model of a car my character might own. I'll figure that stuff out later.

Some authors use the Snowflake Method or Save the Cat to accomplish this sort of pre-writing preparation. Sometimes I like to use the Hero's Journey to work out the journey of my characters. Just google 'hero's journey' and a ton of links will come up. Or you can check out Christopher Vogler's The Writer's Joureny: Mythic Structure for Writers. It's a great book!

I admit, if there's an outline or some manner of road map to follow, it does tend to make the writing of the novel easier.

Here are some other posts I've seen recently with some tips on how to prepare for NaNo.

NaNo Prep via NaNoWriMo
11 Last Minute NaNoWriMo Prep Articles via Dariel Raye
How to Prepare for NaNoWriMo: To Outline or Not to Outline via Writer's Digest
Getting Ready for NaNoWriMo via Steve Shepard

And if you haven't read this book, you should. It's very interesting and inspirational for those of us who want to write faster. Rachel Aaron's book 2K to 10k: Writing Faster, Writing Better, and Writing More of What You Love. It's currently priced at $0.99.

And another here's a site with some free motivational badges for NaNo participants. Something fun to add to your website or blog to brighten it up and let everyone know what you're up to this month. 

For those writers participating...Good Luck! And Happy Writing!

And we begin...NaNoWriMo 2013

It's finally November! And most writers know what that means: National Novel Writing Month! It's sort of an unofficial holiday in my opinion. Although I might not participate every year, I certainly love to celebrate it! This is the time of year where people from all walks of life come together and write for an entire month. I can already feel the creativity simmering in the air! It's like magic!

For those of you who might not be familiar with this event, here's a little info from the NaNoWriMo website to explain things:

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 p.m. on November 30. Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought fleetingly about writing a novel. Here’s a little more about how it all works.

 A little about why writers subjected themselves to this form of creative torture/bliss:

NaNoWriMo is all about using the magical power of deadlines to tell your story. Give someone a goal and a goal-minded community and miracles are bound to happen. Pies will be eaten at amazing rates. Alfalfa will be harvested like never before. And novels will be written in a month.

Part of the reason we organize NaNoWriMo is just to get a book written. We love the fringe benefits accrued to novelists. For one month out of the year, we can stew and storm, and make a huge mess of our apartments and drink lots of coffee at odd hours. And we can do all of these things loudly, in front of people. As satisfying as it is to reach deep within yourself and pull out an unexpectedly passable work of art, it is equally (if not more) satisfying to be able to dramatize the process at social gatherings.

But that artsy dram window is woefully short. The other reason we do NaNoWriMo is because the glow from making big, messy art, and watching others make big, messy art, lasts for a long, long time. The act of sustained creation does bizarre, wonderful things to you. It changes the way you read. And changes, a little bit, your sense of self. We like that.

So that describes it just about perfectly! But, you'll want to check out their website for yourself to discover all the neat writerly things NaNoWriMo has to offer. I especially love the word count widgets. I just love to see them grow! There's a forum where you can log on to chat with other writers. You can also get a group of writing buddies together and keep track of each other's progress. It's very stimulating when you might feel stuck on a scene. You must keep writing! Absolutely NO EDITING! Just get the words down on paper (or computer screen!) and you can edit later. As Nora Roberts says, "You can't edit a blank page."

The hardest thing about NaNoWriMo (for me!) is deciding what story I want to write. I have so many ideas, dreams, snippets of lines that I know will lead to a scene, which leads to a story, and so on. I'm not much for plotting since I follow more of a pantster method about writing a novel, but I've found that plotting, even just a minimal amount of it, does help immensely with keeping the story moving forward. Once you pause in your writing, even for a day or so, it slows you down so much you might not be able to catch up. At least, that's how it works for me. So, choosing a story that I know the beginning, middle and end of is vitally important.

Now I'm off to work on my own NaNo story! I've got a word count to add to! If you're participating in NaNoWriMo this year, please feel free to add me as a writing buddy! You can check out my profile. Now let's write!

Happy Writing!
~Tricia