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Writers’ Huddle: NaNoWriMo: How to Write a Novel in a Month October 2015
© Ali Luke, 2015 www.writershuddle.com P a g e | 1
NaNoWriMo: How to Write a Novel in a Month
This is a transcript of the seminar, edited slightly for easy reading. You can find the audio
version and worksheet at www.writershuddle.com/seminars/oct2015.
Hi, I’m Ali Luke, and this is the October seminar for Writers’ Huddle: How to
Write a Novel in a Month.
If you’ve not heard of it before, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing
Month, and it pretty much does what it says on the tin. The idea is that you
write a novel in a month. It’s actually international now – I think the “national”
was from the early beginnings of it.
NaNoWriMo started in 1999 with 21 people taking part, and it’s grown year on
year. In 2014, over 325,000 people took part all across the world.
So it’s an exciting worldwide writing event, and chances are, if you’re in any
writers’ groups or communities – including Writers’ Huddle! – you’ll know
people who’ll be taking part or who have taken part.
A bit later in this seminar, we’ll be hearing from three members of Writers’
Huddle about their experiences of NaNoWriMo and their tips, if you’re maybe
doing this for the first time or if you’re struggling to see the success with it that
you’d like to see.
It’s an exciting challenge. Writing a novel in a month is no walk in the park – it’s
a big undertaking – but it’s one month of your life. You’re not committing to
doing this for a whole year or for two years or something.
It works out to 1,667 words per day, if you write every day (as there’s 30 days
in November). That’s quite a bit of writing. For me personally, if I can get 1,000
words of fiction in an hour, I’m happy – so I guess for me, that would mean
writing for between an hour and a half and two hours every day.
How realistic that is depends a little bit on your lifestyle and your
commitments. For me a few years ago, that was easy-peasy – for me these
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days with two small children and working part-time on my paid work, it’s more
of a struggle.
So this is not something that’s necessarily right for everyone. But if you’re
considering it, if you just want to know a bit more, or if you’re thinking of
taking part by doing something a bit different – maybe less than 50,000 words,
maybe doing it across a couple of months or whatever might work for you –
then keep listening, and hopefully you’ll pick up some useful tips.
Who is NaNoWriMo For?
When I was looking into the history of NaNo a bit for this seminar, I found out
that one of the novels I really enjoyed in the last couple of years, The Night
Circus by Erin Morgenstern, was a NaNo novel. I think she wrote it across the
course of two NaNoWriMos. That was one I used last month as one of the
examples in our Descriptions seminar.
The Night Circus is brilliant and I guess it would maybe not even exist if it
wasn’t for NaNo and Erin having the chance to write it during that. So that’s
pretty cool! You don’t know where the novel you write might end up.
This is not something that’s just done by new writers or amateur writers. This
is something that professional writers do, or people who go on and become
professional writers. Literary writers can do this; commercial genre writers can
do this. NaNo is very egalitarian in that way. You can take part whatever stage
you’re at with your writing.
I’m not going to say anything more at this stage – I’m just going to jump into
the interviews with three members of Writers’ Huddle. I’ve got Dana and
Frances and Corianne talking about their experiences and how they got on
with NaNo, what they would recommend to other Huddlers who might be
thinking about taking the plunge.
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Dana’s NaNo Experience and Tips
Ali: Hey, Dana, it's really great to be chatting to you, and thanks so much for
coming and doing this. Hello to everybody in Writers' Huddle! I've got Dana
here as our first Nano participant who's just going to be sharing her
experiences with us a bit, and hopefully giving us a few tips and lessons
learned and so on.
Dana’s History with NaNoWriMo
I wanted to get started by asking you how many times have you taken part in
NaNoWriMo, and how did it go?
Dana: I tried two different times. The first one, I was doing pretty decently
until my character threw a hissy fit and stormed off and I had no idea how to
bring him back. The second attempt, I got about a chapter in and realised I had
a well in-depth character but absolutely no plot - so that didn't go as well.
Ali: Yeah, sometimes it's good when characters take the reins, but sometimes
that's quite unhelpful with the strong-willed ones.
Dana: I'm like, “Wait! I need you for the rest of the story! Come back!”
Dana’s Tips for First Time NaNo-ers
Ali: What tips would you have, then, for people who are just maybe doing this
for the first time? They’re going into NaNoWriMo – what should they be doing
and not doing?
Dana: Well, first and foremost, focus on the fact that it is for fun. It is
completely and utterly for failing miserably, just for the enjoyment of it, to get
that story out of your head finally, to have something to talk to other people
with, to get that [ten] thousand hours of practice that a lot of professionals
discuss.
Don't take yourself too seriously with it. And then other than that, just plot
ahead of time, even if it's just a brief thing on Day One or even if you cheat and
do it on October 31st, just go in with a game plan – because like I said, the
second time I failed miserably because I realised I had absolutely no plot.
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[Ali’s note: Planning ahead of time is actually allowed under the rules – you’re
just not supposed to start the actual writing.]
Ali: Yeah, sometimes you can just launch in there and get a certain distance – I
know I find that – and you get two chapters in and then, “Oh, where do I go
now?”
What Would Dana Do Differently Next Time?
Ali (cont): So I guess that slightly answers my next question, which is ... what
would you do differently another time?
Dana: Definitely try to have something properly plotted out, so that I knew
where I was going ahead of time. Then I'm not just sitting there pounding my
head against the wall, going “Oh my gosh, I'm about 5000 words behind, how
do I catch up?” and spending all my time figuring out where to go instead of
actually writing.
Ali: For you, is there an optimum level of plotting? Do you feel you just need a
list of key points that you're going to hit within the novel and a sense of the
ending, or something, or do you want a really detailed synopsis?
What do you feel for you would be the right amount?
Dana: Well, I personally have a theory on writers, that there are two generic
types.
You have what I like to consider the “director” types, who have the entire
script plotted out, they know exactly what's going on, and their characters
are just actors. They direct them which way to go, and it works beautifully. My
one friend does it, and it baffles me.
I'm more what I like to call the “medium”, in which I channel the characters,
and I virtually have no story aside from broad strokes of “OK, this is the basic
story arc,” and then I put my characters in play and go “All right, tell me how
your story goes, I'll just get it down, yeah?” And that's probably what went
wrong in the first story that I did, in which he just had a little hissy fit and I'm
like “I don't even know any more.”
Ali: It’s one of those things where I guess you're accessing the subconscious
mind, and sometimes that works, sometimes you've got the story there and
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you just have to access it a bit, and then sometimes it doesn’t work. Maybe the
story was never a full novel anyway.
I know I've had ideas that I thought would be a novel or I thought would be a
short story and they ended up being just vastly different lengths, and I think
unless you do at least some level of planning, it's just hard to see, “Will this
idea even pan out?” So with NaNoWriMo it's 50,000 words, which is a
relatively short novel, but it's still a heck of a lot of writing.
Dana: Yeah, basically it's just trying to figure out what works best for you.
Another fun thing about NaNo is the fact that you can use it to test the
waters a little bit and figure out what does work best for you.
Is it best to do the daily writing like it suggests? Is it better to just pound out a
quarter of the story every weekend? Whatever works best for you.
Same when it comes to the amount of plotting that you need to do: is it easier
to just do broad strokes of, “OK, I know my characters and I know the basic
concept of the story, let's put 'em into play,” or do you need it to be really
plotted out specifically, like “All right, this person is going to be here at this
point in time and they're going to do this thing, and that's how the entire
chapter's going to go down?
So it depends on the person, and NaNo is actually a really great time to figure
that out, to test the waters.
Ali: I agree, I think it's a really good tool for pushing yourself as a writer, and
for being able to try things. It's only a month, so you can try something and
then if it doesn't pan out, it's not like you lost three years of your life to it.
Dana’s Post-NaNo Experience
Ali (cont): That leads me on to the final thing I wanted to ask you, which is
whether the effects of doing NaNoWriMo lasted. So it sounds like it was a
fruitful time for you, that you learned something about your process and you
maybe took that forward in your writing as a whole?
Dana: Doing both NaNos really led me towards really getting back into the
passion of writing, and then from there led me to joining writing communities,
and led me to seminars and webinars on writing, that sort of thing.
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That really got me to find myself as a writer, find my voice, figure out my
most opportune time of writing, the best spot to write, the whole thing. It's
still a learning process, but yeah, I definitely learned at least a little bit. At least
sparks, with NaNo.
If you backtrack a little further, NaNo had a sister project called Script Frenzy
which is what I actually started with and which is a hundred-page script in
thirty days instead of a 50,000 novel. And roughly about the same amount of
wordage. But that's where I started because I graduated in production. And
then that transitioned me in to NaNo, and then that transitioned me into being
a fairly steady writer, now.
Ali: That's really good and really encouraging for people like me, and probably
quite a few of the Huddlers listening, who maybe tried it and failed to get the
50,000 words.
There's a huge amount you can get from the experience of even trying
NaNoWriMo. It doesn't really matter, almost, whether you do hit 50,000 words
or even 20,000 words or 10,000 words - the experience of doing it can lead to
some real benefits in your writing life and in your writing.
Dana: Yeah, another fun thing is communicating with other writers. A lot of
NaNos have regional connections, and then breaks it down into more and
more neighbourhood-like territories, and just finding other people in your area
and going to those write-ins.
Even if you don't go to the write-ins, use them as a connection point to find
like-minded writers in your area. And even if you go out and just have a pizza
with them one day and chat about your stories, that's another really big thing
for me.
The more I talk about my story and the more other people talk about theirs
to me, the more excited we all become and the more motivated we are to sit
down and write the next chapter, because we are so excited about talking
about it to people that we want them to actually read what is in our head.
And so finding those people when you connect to them via NaNo – even if it's
online using the forums and whatnot – it really, really helps to inspire. At least
I've found that it does.
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Ali: That's so true, though. I think just being around other writers is
encouraging in itself. Being around people who get what it is to be a writer.
Some people are lucky enough maybe that they've got a spouse or a friend or a
family member or somebody who's really supportive. My husband, although
he's not really a fiction writer himself, he has done NaNoWriMo alongside me
and he's really encouraging of my writing.
But some people don't have that, and then being amongst a community of
writers is really crucial. But just generally – it's good fun, it's nice to meet with
other writers.
I've never done the meeting up with NaNo people myself, but I've got a friend
who did that quite a lot and made some really good, lasting writing friendships
through that.
Dana: Yeah, and you never know who you can set up as a year-round local
writing community, to help beyond November. When November ends, then
you guys want to go back through and polish up your stories, or start from
scratch and do something a little more serious, you have a writing group to
help you push you forward in the same way that you had that drive during
NaNo.
Having that writing community there really helps, and being able to connect
with them again even if it's online then holding on to those relationships year-
round will really keep you motivated to keep writing.
Ali: I agree. So yeah, if you’re listening to this and just thinking about dipping
your toes in, do look and see if there's a local group to you, because there are
loads all around the world.
If you've never belonged to a writing group or anything before, a NaNo group
is probably quite a good way in because you'll find there are lots of people who
are just doing this crazy thing for the first time, and people are very open to
having others along for the ride.
Plus it's only a month, so if you discover that you don't get on with these
people you can probably just tactfully take your leave at the end of
NaNoWriMo and then you're done with it. But hopefully, you know, as you
found, as a lot of people I'm sure have found, it's a really encouraging way to
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just be with other writers and to have that all year round, not just for
November.
I think we'll wrap up there. I hope this has been encouraging to everyone
listening, and thanks so much, Dana, for coming along and telling us about
your experiences of NaNo. Are you going to be doing it again this year?
Dana: I think I'm going to be doing my own version of NaNo, which involves
crocheting a crap-ton of Christmas gifts so I'm probably going to have to bow
out this time. But I'm definitely going to try next year, for sure.
Ali: Awesome.
#2: Frances’ NaNoWriMo Experiences and Tips
Ali: So our second speaker on the NaNoWriMo seminar is Frances. So thanks so
much, Frances, for being with us today. It's great to have you here.
Frances’ History with NaNoWriMo
Ali (cont): Can we just start by asking you how many times have you taken part
in NaNoWriMo and how did it go for you?
Frances: I've done six NaNos now, so I'm going into my seventh this year. And
I've always passed the 50,000 mark, so that's been good, and this year I'll cross
over the half a million words written during NaNo.
Ali: That's amazing, wow – well done.
Frances: Yeah, that was a surprise to me when I looked it up a while ago.
Ali: I've done about three NaNos and I won it once. That's brilliant.
Frances’ Tips for First Time NaNo-ers
Ali (cont): What tips, then, do you have for people who are maybe just starting
their very first NaNo? What would you recommend?
Frances: I think because of the format of NaNo, where you're writing quite fast
or faster than most people normally write, every day, it lends itself to letting
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go, in a way, being freer and letting yourself write things that perhaps you
would worry about other times.
That would be my tip, not worry about it too much, just get words written,
and that lends itself to the words getting better.
On a practical level I'd say write every day, because once you skip a few days
and start falling behind, it gets hard to catch back up again, and you start to
lose a bit of motivation then.
So I would say, yeah, enjoy yourself, let go of it, and just write every day.
Ali: I think that's a great way to get through NaNoWriMo, because yeah, if you
skip a day then there's just that much more to catch up with.
Frances: Yeah, it starts building up really quick.
Ali: I think there's something motivating about having a whole chain of days
when you've been writing, even if it's not specifically for NaNo. Just a whole
chain of, “I wrote every day even just for maybe five minutes.”
Frances: Yeah, definitely. And NaNo has really fun little graphs and word
counters and stuff. That helps me – that makes me feel like I'm competing
against myself, and yeah, to see that little graph going up every day, and it's
got a little line showing you where you should be, and you can see where it is.
That's quite motivating for me, and it feels like quite an achievement then.
Ali: That's really encouraging, yeah. Do you find that you tend to finish before
the end of the month? Do you actually beat the thirty days or are you finishing
right on the last day?
Frances: Once I was finishing right on the last day, one time I had to write quite
a lot, and the last three days were a bit manic, but all the other times, I've got
to the end before and gone over, sometimes.
It depends how you want to look at it. I see it not so much as writing 50,000
words but writing for a month, and so sometimes that means I'm writing
more.
Ali: That's brilliant. Is there anything that you'd do differently this year, or in
the future? It sounds like what you're doing is working brilliantly.
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What Would Frances Do Differently Next Time?
Frances: This year my plan has been a bit different, as in I've actually got a
plan. And it's quite specifically catered to NaNo, which is that I've got thirty
chunks, so each day is a different point ticked off on my plan.
When I had this idea, that is my character following a list of thirty things to do,
I thought, I'm saving that for NaNo because that's just perfect.
Ali: That sounds ideal! I think I've seen people do a NaNo novel where they
have thirty days in the life of the character as well as the thirty days they write,
and so on. I think that's probably quite a good structure when you know you've
got to fit it into that kind of writing time.
Frances: Yeah, when you're writing fast like that, you don't want to be
spending time wondering about what you're going to write that day. You don't
want to run out of ideas, which I've done before, and had to start something
different partway through.
Ali: Yeah, Dana, who was the first speaker on this seminar said she's had that
problem, I think I too have had that problem. You launch into it and you're
excited and thenyour character goes off in the wrong direction and then you're
lost.
Frances: Yeah, or you can start too fast and peak quite early. I've done that
before – by about day 9 I felt like I'd written everything that I needed to, or
wanted to write. I've just done it too quickly.
Frances’ Post-NaNo Experiences
Ali: It's definitely a marathon, not a sprint. So did the effects of doing
NaNoWriMo last beyond November? Did that feeling of “I've written every day
in November” carry on to the next few months or the next year for you?
Frances: Yeah, definitely. My first NaNo I did was really the first time that I'd
done much writing for years and years, so that kickstarted me back into writing
again after quite a long time of not writing.
Last year, after I finished in November, I carried on writing every day until
March or April, maybe, so the streak just carried on quite naturally. So in terms
of writing it definitely does. I can ride that for quite a while.
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Also in non-NaNo pursuits, just in writing in general, I've learned a lot about
how I write and how I plot, and how I keep myself motivated, what timescales
to do things on, sprints and things like that.
And just in general in life, if you feel that you can write a novel in a month
you feel like you can do quite a lot of different things. So it opens you up to
other challenges.
Ali: I think you're completely right, when you push yourself and you see that
you can do it, you realise that a lot is possible.
Frances: Yeah, something insurmountable as writing a novel, when you break
it down day by day and just chip away at it you can do that. So there must be
other things that you can do if you just keep working at them every day.
Ali: In terms of the material you produced, did you edit and rework and revise,
did you just move on from what you'd written on to something new – what
happened to your NaNo novels?
Frances: Some of them just sat underneath the settee gathering dust once
they'd been printed out, but I feel like they're rough drafts that I could come
back to if I wanted to, if I was still interested in the story, at some point.
Last year's one, I am still working on editing and moving it – it turned out that
it needed a bit of a different direction, so I'm moving it in a different direction.
I think that's something that I could do something with, and that's the plan for
this year as well.
But it's OK when that happens, when it's a dud idea or you decide actually that
you don't like it, it's only been a month.
Ali: Exactly. It's not like you've committed five years of your life to this novel
only to decide, actually, this isn't working at all.
Frances: Yeah, exactly. I think it takes a bit of the mystique away from writing a
novel like that.
Ali: It makes it easier to have a go, even if you're not feeling 100% confident or
if you've never done anything like a novel before. People can just launch in and
give it a go for a month. And as you say, it's a month of your life, it's not a huge
commitment.
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Frances: Being quite concentrated like that, it makes it more exciting, and it
gives it a different feel. So even though I am writing most days at the
moment, NaNo is still something that I'm looking forward to, and it still feels
different, the energy is different then.
Ali: I guess it's an event, isn't it, because so many people are taking part all at
the same time. And I don't know, have you had any kind of collaboration with
other people doing NaNo alongside you?
Frances: Yeah, definitely. The social aspect of it is really important to me, and
so there are people that I've met through NaNo here who I now meet up
with weekly or every other week, and we chat a lot and do a bit of writing.
Yeah, so the community feel of it is really important to me as well. The forums
are really interesting and there are really nice, helpful people on the forums
who will sit down and seriously talk about what seemed like completely wild
ideas that anyone in real life would just look at you, and just edge away slowly.
Ali: You definitely need people who get it, as a writer, people who really
understand where you're coming from.
Frances: Yeah, you do, and the people who are attracted to NaNo tend to be
not super serious. They're also interested in lots of other pop culture stuff, I
find, so we spend a lot of time talking about TV and films and stuff. It's an
interesting group of people who are drawn to this, and if you're drawn to it
then you've automatically got something in common with other people.
Ali: Let's face it, most normal people don't want to try to write a novel in a
month.
Frances: Yeah. A lot of people think that it's silly, or a lot of people think it
doesn't work for them, and that's probably true, it doesn't work for everybody,
but if it works for you, then I think you'll get a lot out of it.
Ali: Well, thanks so much for joining us. I think we'll wrap up there, because I
want people to be able to go away and digest. But yeah, thanks for being here,
and very best of luck with this year's NaNo as well.
Frances: Thank you.
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Corianne’s NaNoWriMo Experiences and Tips
Ali: Our third speaker on the seminar is Corianne, and I'll just start off by saying
welcome, Corianne. How many times have you taken part in NaNoWriMo, and
how did it go?
Corianne: Well, I have three buttons on my profile, but I only won once. And
before the seminar I looked at what I did, and apparently in 2012 I entered but
I wrote zero words, so that's not very good.
Two years later I entered again and then I wrote 1,359 words in the whole
month. Not a lot, as well. The only time I actually won NaNo was in 2011, and
then I wrote 52,417 words.
Ali: That's brilliant, fantastic. To win it even once is a huge achievement.
Corianne: Yes, it is, but looking back, the thing I wrote, it's not very good. I
changed direction midway through the month, so I was not very happy with it
at the end of the month. I didn't finish the story, I just passed 50,000 and I
thought, OK, I'll forget about it now.
What Corianne Got Out Of NaNoWriMo
Ali: Let's just stick with that for a minute. I'm going to actually jump around in
my questions a bit. Because that was basically my own experience of NaNo:
the one time that I won it, in 2007, I ditched the novel afterwards. I really
wasn't happy with it.
But there were other positive effects of doing it. So did you feel that even
though you didn't go on and use that writing, did you get anything out of NaNo
– did you feel it helped you develop a better writing habit or something?
Corianne: Ah, yes, because it does force you to write constantly, and I'm really
a person who's motivated by the charts.
On the website you have a chart and you have your daily goal words, and I'm
really the kind of person who will try to go over the goal.
I think that was good, that I managed to write so many words, and it's a sense
of achievement. But in the end, I don't think it's really my thing. The reason
that I tried to participate again and again was that I liked that I was making
progress, and that it was a way to motivate myself.
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Ali: I don't think NaNo is necessarily right for everyone. I think it's definitely a
good thing to try and I'm not sure it's quite my thing. I have ambivalent
feelings about it.
Corianne’s Tips for First-Time NaNo-ers
Ali (cont): What tips would you have, then, for somebody who's just taking
their first steps, who's just doing NaNoWriMo maybe for the first time?
Obviously you've had some really great success, and you've had some times
when it didn't work out – what tips would you have for just getting to that
50,000 words?
Corianne: For me personally, I think you have to start off in the first week and
try to write over the daily goal. Because I get really demotivated if I don't write
on the first day, and then I think, OK, I'll do it tomorrow ... and if I don't do it
then, and it still says zero words, I'm very likely to not write at all in the whole
month, because the amount that you have to catch up on seems so much.
So it would definitely be a good thing to just go in and just write as much as
you can, and go over the daily goal.
Ali: That’s a really good way to get off to a good start in Week 1. Because once
you get on a roll, it's easy to stay on it, and once you start falling behind, as you
say, it seems so much work to catch up.
Corianne: Exactly. And there are going to be days that you can't write, or that
you just have something else on, and then it's OK to not write for a day if you
don't have that much to catch up on.
Ali: If you do just a bit extra every day then you can get a few days ahead,
yeah.
What Would Corianne Do Differently Next Time?
Ali (cont): So if you do NaNo again this year, or if you do it again next year,
what are you going to do differently compared to previous times?
Corianne: Well, the previous times I've always started it without a plan, I'm a
typical pantser. But the next time I do it I would really like to have a certain
idea of what I'm going to write, or to have a structure. I’d like to have
something to work on, and then at the end of the month I'm actually happy
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with what I've worked on. Not just that I've written something that's 50,000
words, but those 50,000 words that are absolutely about nothing.
Ali: Sure – you want to come out of the month with something that you then
want to work on and develop, rather than just that was a good experience,
maybe, but the words aren't ones you want to keep.
Do you have a sense of how much planning is about right, for you? Is it just
having a very brief idea of maybe the beginning, the middle and the end, or do
you want an in-depth plan, or maybe something between the two?
Corianne: Well, I am working on something now, I've been working on it I think
for a year on and off. I haven't gone very far, I'm just working on some
character backgrounds. It's a science fiction world, so I'm doing some
worldbuilding et cetera.
I have a vague idea of where I want the story to go, but it is a story I would not
be able to write just by the seat of my pants, I would really need to have an
idea of what happens where and so on. I don’t think I will be able to do that for
this November, but maybe for next year.
Ali: Yeah, although NaNoWriMo is just November, you do need to plan a little
bit ahead. It’s not something where you get to the 31st of October and think
“Right, tomorrow I'm going to write a novel!”
You do have to have a little bit of planning time, if it's going to be successful. I
mean, if you're going to run a marathon you do have to do some training, not
just launch in.
Corianne’s Post-NaNo Experience
Ali (cont): Just to wrap up – did you feel that in terms of the writing you have
been doing after NaNo, you writing has been maybe stronger? Because you
wrote 50,000 words, which is fantastic, and I think the more words we write
the better we get. Do you feel your writing has improved as a result?
Corianne: I think mostly my writing habits have improved. I really try to write
every day or every other day, and a lot of the times it doesn't work, but yeah,
one of the effects is I do know it's very good to be writing every day, or at least
regularly, and really making progress, measurably.
So that's something I try to achieve, but it's very hard sometimes.
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Ali: I agree – I often have great intentions and then it doesn't always quite
work out. But you're completely right, that if you can write every day or even
every other day, or just on a really regular basis, it just gives you this whole
chain of successes and then it's much easier to build on. I think that applies
during November for NaNo, but any time of the year as well.
Corianne: Exactly, and one of the things I also do sometimes is make a chart
in Excel, like the chart in NaNoWriMo, and I have a column with all my word
counts of the days, and then I just make a simple graph and you see the line
going up and up and up.
It really works for me to, at the end of a session, put in my word count.
Ali: It's like a little reward for writing, and then you get to see your progress
Well, thanks so much for joining us, Corianne. It's been really great to hear
about your experiences, and I think that'll be helpful to other people who are
maybe facing this for the first time or who are maybe giving NaNo a go and
they've had zero words or a couple of thousand words, and they really want to
make it different this year or next year. Thanks so much!
Corianne: Yeah, thank you.
Summing Up and Key Tips
It was really cool to get to talk to Dana and Frances and Corianne. I’m keen to
do this again if we can find a seminar topic in future that would really suit
having a few different voices and perspectives from within Writers’ Huddle.
If there’s a topic you’d like to see, do let me know, and I’ll have a think about
how that could work. I’d really like the seminars to be more interactive than
just me, or maybe me and a guest speaker, talking at everyone else in Writers’
Huddle.
I wanted to just say a few words of summing up at this point. I’ll tell you briefly
about my own experiences with NaNoWriMo. I’ve not been nearly as
successful as Frances, who I’m a wee bit envious of. I’m very impressed by her
work ethic and dedication.
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Ali’s NaNo Experience
I won NaNo once, in 2007. I wrote 50,000 words of a novel, straight from the
beginning – it wasn’t a novel I’d already started on. I later ditched it. I decided I
didn’t actually like it. But it was a good experience and it was what got me into
being able to write around my day job, and what led me quite quickly into
blogging and then, less than a year later from NaNo, into working for myself
and making a living from my writing.
So that was pretty cool. I gained a lot more than just the words written.
I’ve tried NaNo in two or three other years with different goals. I think I’ve
been less successful with that because I’ve split my focus – so I’ve been trying
to do 20,000 words on fiction and 20,000 words on non-fiction, or something. I
think whatever you’re going to go with in NaNo, even if you’re going to go with
a goal less than the 50,000, I’d really recommend that you just focus on one
project.
For me, I think the 50,000 word target is a good one because it’s challenging
and it doesn’t give me any wiggle room.
Key Tips for Writers Thinking About NaNoWriMo
Just a few tips that I thought were coming out from talking to Dana and
Frances and Corianne:
#1: The Importance of Community
I’ve never been great at joining in with the NaNo forums or going to meet-ups
locally or anything like that – NaNo always seems to come, for me, at
particularly busy times of the year. I think that probably if I had, I’d have been
more motivated and would have felt more accountable.
If you are taking part, I’d really recommend that you try to find other people
doing NaNo who you can physically meet up with and maybe write with. If
that’s not possible, at least take part in the fourms. There’s a Facebook group
for NaNo, and obviously you can talk to people in Writers’ Huddle – we have a
specific NaNo forum. Make the most of being part of a community of writers
all taking part in the same event at the same time, which I think is quite
exciting. There’s a real spirit and enthusiasm to NaNo.
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#2: You Don’t Have to Win
Even if you don’t “win” [hit the 50,000 word target before the end of Nov 30th],
don’t feel it was wasted, don’t feel you haven’t succeeded. Taking part is very
much what counts, and if you don’t get very far, at least you’ll have learned
something about your writing process, about what didn’t work – and you can
give it another go the following year.
If you can really push forward and hit that 50,000 words, it’s a huge boost to
your morale. It gives you a substantial chunk of fiction that you could, if you
want to, develop further. Or you could say that these are 50,000 words I
needed to write to get through this part of my writing apprenticeship; I’m going
to move on from them, they’re not something I want to work on further. That’s
completely valid. Don’t feel disappointed if the writing you come out with is
something that you later decide you don’t particularly want to invest further
time and energy in.
#3: Tracking Your Progress
The statistics side of NaNo, seeing your progress every day, seeing the chart go
up is really motivating. Even if you’re not taking part in NaNo, you could use
something similar. You could track your own progress on your novel in a
spreadsheet, you could post it on your blog, you can get little widgets for your
sidebar that do that and so on.
It can just be really encouraging to see how you’re getting on day by day and
week by week, and watch the words add up – particularly if you can build an
unbroken chain of days on which you’re writing.
#4: NaNoWriMo Isn’t Right for Everyone
I will say that NaNo is maybe not for everyone. I don’t think it’s ideal for all
writers. It might be that you’re working on projects that don’t really suit
writing 50,000 words in a month – maybe you’re working on short stories, or
you’re working on non-fiction or something.
It’s not right for everyone, every year. I’ve definitely had some years when it
was really not going to be practical for me to do a novel in a month in
November. Last year, I was eight months pregnant in November – that was not
going to be the time to focus on a novel!
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It may also be that you’re also at a different stage in a writing project, so
perhaps you’re on the second draft of a novel and you want to focus on
editing.
Don’t feel that you have to do it every single year, if you’ve been doing it
before. Don’t feel that you have to take part just because friends are taking
part, if you don’t want to and it’s not right for you.
You do have to go into NaNo quite wholeheartedly if you’re going to see much
success.
#5: Plan Ahead
Finally, I would strongly planning ahead. Don’t just decide on October 31st that
you’re going to do NaNo – because you really need to have a sense of who
your characters are, you need to know where the story is going, maybe some
key plot points along the way, how it’s going to end, and so on.
If you don’t plan, you end up with – like Dana – a character that just goes off in
some crazy direction and refuses to talk to you, or you just run out of steam a
couple of chapters in. That makes the whole thing a lot tougher.
If you’re trying to plan as you go along, or if you feel like you’re writing and it’s
not going anywhere, it’s frustrating.
You might want to relisten to K.M. Weiland’s seminar on story structure, or
give it a listen for the first time if you’ve not listened to that one before, and
just nail down some of the plot points, some of what’s going to happen during
the novel. Obviously it can change during the month – but if you’ve got a bit of
a roadmap, it can really help you stay on track.
Use October, if you can, to do some planning and some preparation for NaNo –
that might also require some practical preparation, like getting other stuff in
your life cleared out of the way so you can really focus during November.
If you will be taking part, please do let us know. We’ve got a NaNoWriMo
forum in Writers’ Huddle, and it would be lovely to be able to encourage one
another. I hope you’ll also find friends and fellow writers to connect with
through NaNo more broadly, but it would be great if within the Huddle, we
have a group of us encouraging one another along.
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If you’re doing it for the first time, very best of luck – it’s an exciting ride. I
think you’ll definitely learn something about yourself and your writing, and it
can only be a useful experience (and hopefully a good experience) for you.
If you’re doing it for the second or third or fourth time, maybe think about
what didn’t work for you last time, if you didn’t win, or what did work for you
well, if you did win, and what could you do this year to really set yourself up
for success.
Very best of luck, and I hope to see you in the forums.
Useful Links and Further Reading
Discuss anything relating to this seminar in the Writers’ Huddle forums:
writershuddle.com/forums/seminars/november-2015-nanowrimo-how-to-
write-a-novel-in-a-month
Seminar: Structuring and Outlining Your Novel, with K.M. Weiland – learn
about the different structural points that should appear in set places in your
novel.
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Articles / blog posts:
How to Prepare for NaNoWriMo: To Outline or Not To Outline, Brian Klems,
Writer’s Digest. Sensible, though fairly brief, thoughts on preparing in advance.
5 Tips for #NaNoWriMo I’ve Learned from My 464-Day Writing Streak, Jamie
Todd Rubin. Some great advice not just about NaNo but about writing regularly
(even if, like Jamie, you have a full time job plus small children).
Monkeys with Typewriters & Why I Hate NaNoWriMo, Robert Smedley, Fuel
Your Writing. Not everyone loves NaNoWriMo! While I share some of Robert’s
reservations, I don’t agree with a lot of what he says here. Your mileage may
vary!
NaNoWriMo: The Good, The Bad, and The Really, Really Ugly, Chris Brecheen.
a rather more nuanced, and detailed, take on the pros and cons of
NaNoWriMo. Again, I don’t agree with all of this.