WizardWriMo? 8 Tips to Tackle National Novel Writing Month
/by Ari Koontz
It’s the most wonderful time of the year… and by that I mean it’s National Novel Writing Month.
As a writer, I will be the first one to tell you that drafting things? Absolutely sucks. That first stage of getting a perfect idea out of your head and onto a not-so-perfect page can be full of frustration, disappointment, and self-doubt. But when you turn it into a month-long party/sport/community building exercise, it somehow transforms from a chore to something I look forward to every year - because here, the point is not perfection, but having fun and challenging yourself.
For the uninitiated, National Novel Writing Month or NaNoWriMo is an annual challenge wherein you attempt to write 50,000 words in 30 days… or a similar goal of your own choosing. It seems impossible, and it kind of is if your goal is to create a fully readable and fleshed-out book, but that’s not what NaNoWriMo is truly about. It’s more of a writing exercise to keep your imaginative muscles limber and to have the joy of accomplishing something, creating something, without letting yourself second-guess whether or not it’s good (because spoiler: it isn’t. It never is. Embrace the awfulness).
This is my tenth consecutive NaNoWriMo, so of course I have to keep up the streak. I love doing NaNo because it’s the one time of year where I throw away any expectations and just allow myself to be completely silly. I’ve written everything from portal fantasies to pirate adventures to zombies in space to gay ghost stories, all of which have barely any plot and none of which I’ve had the courage to reread after day 30 is over, but each an adventure that got me excited to write (almost) every day. Because it’s about quantity over quality, I can do things like copy-paste the entirety of Billy Joel’s “Piano Man” in multiple scenes and call it dramatic tension, or go on paragraph-long monologues about what the omniscient narrator may or may not have for dinner… hey, as long as you’re typing, it all counts.
So, as the resident NaNoWriMo enthusiast, I’m here to give my top tips for making this event a success, for anyone who’s thought about doing it or has done it fifteen times or could never imagine doing such a thing but wants to look on in admiration. It’s definitely not too late to sign up at nanowrimo.org, but if you’re not ready yet, don’t worry - you’ll just have plenty of time to plan for next year 😈
1. Lean into the #aesthetic
One of the best parts of NaNoWriMo, or really any writing project, is all the time you spend working on things that are not writing but definitely count as writing, aka research and aesthetic-building. Did you really start a new project if you don’t have a two-hour-long playlist and detailed Pinterest board about it? Not only is this good for procrastination, but it also always gets me hyped about the project and in more of a writing mood - immersing yourself in the kind of world you want to build and getting inspired to bring in more details. So if you’re feeling stuck, close that word doc and open another site that will help get your creative juices flowing.
2. Word sprints are your friend
If you so much as dip your toe into the NaNo community, you’ll see it’s all about wordcounts, wordcounts, wordcounts. Every writer has a different approach to tackling the 50k monthly goal, but the “par” or 1667 words needed on average each day is a generally accepted milestone for pacing yourself. And one of the best ways to make those words happen is word sprints, or small increments of time where you just write as fast as you can until the time is up and see how many you’ve got. I find that these short bursts are super helpful in getting me out of a rut and making it to my goal faster, especially if I’m short on writing time. Sprints can be done alone with self-timing, or you can join in with the many sprints that NaNoWriMo facilitates on Twitter at all hours of the day, or challenge a couple of your friends to a sprint together if you’re like me and thrive on competition.
You’ll also occasionally hear about word crawls, which are themed challenges that you can do on your own time whenever you need a boost toward your goals. I always try and fail to make it through this extensive Harry Potter word crawl that takes you through every single year of Hogwarts, but there are also shorter ones themed after stuff like Gravity Falls, Wizard of Oz, Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, and even an I-9 driving crawl. Check out the forums for more writing challenges!
3. Get ahead in the beginning (if you can)
As I mentioned above, there’s a lot of different methods for making your way to 50k. Some people are vigilant about doing exactly 1667 each day, some will go hard the first few days and try to finish super early (like me in 2012… never again tho), some will procrastinate to the last minute, some even do a bonkers method called “Reverse NaNoWriMo” that I still do not fully comprehend. However you get there is valid, but a word from a seasoned Wrimo: it’s always good to build yourself a nice cushion at the beginning if you have the time and energy. Week 1 is when your story is still fresh and exciting, and there will definitely be days in the future where you’ll struggle to write so much as a sentence, so getting ahead at the start means a lot less stress on those struggle days and less chance that you’ll get overwhelmed and drop out. My personal rule of thumb is to double my par for the first couple days, then try to hit par for the rest of the first week. Which definitely does not happen every time, but even having a 1k cushion can be a big help later down the road.
4. Be kind to yourself
One of the most important things you can do for yourself in NaNoWrimo is to be forgiving. After all, this is supposed to be for fun - you’re not actually “winning” anything besides a cute digital certificate and the joy of accomplishing something, so don’t stress yourself out too much. If you’re struggling to meet your goals, re-assess and consider doing a pared down version of the goal: instead of 1667 words a day, maybe you’d just like a round 1000, or maybe sitting down and writing anything is enough. Take breaks when you’re feeling frustrated, and remind yourself that this is not about perfection. NaNo can be whatever you need it to be, and there’s nothing wrong with taking a day or a week off until you feel that writing spark again.
5. Push yourself
But with that being said, this is also called a challenge for a reason. It won’t all be easy, and sometimes the best thing to do is to make yourself sit down for an extra 15 minutes. Push through that scene even though you hate it, so you can get to the much more fun one around the corner. Open your document even if you’re feeling sluggish and unmotivated, because a couple sentences is better than nothing. I do a lot of NaNoWriMo with friends, and one of the best things for noveling success is the tough-love supporter who will make you do one more sprint with them before bed or tell you that there is no way you’re logging off until you get down those last 27 words leading to your next milestone. And if you don’t have a friend to give you that nudge, do it for yourself. At least once a week.
6. Find your buddies
As I’ve mentioned a couple times now, there are a lot of parts of NaNoWriMo that are more enjoyable with friends. From word sprints to late-night encouragement, writer friends are worth their weight in gold, not just in November but any time of the year. I honestly would have never finished my first NaNo in 2012 if it weren’t for my heroic group chat, and I’ve met some of my closest friends through interactions on NaNo Twitter and forums. Even if you don’t know anyone else taking on this particular challenge, don’t be afraid to rope your other friends into it by challenging them to a “work sprint” (you write while they do their own projects or clean their room”) or asking them to text you every day for progress updates. At Wizards in Space, we know that community is everything, and this is doubly true for such a momentous feat as writing a novel in a month.
7. Don’t edit
No, seriously. This is the golden rule of National Novel Writing Month: DO NOT EDIT, WHATEVER YOU DO. This novel is going to be terrible. It’s going to have lots of grammatical errors and disjointed chapters and monologues that don’t make sense, and if you spend your time trying to fix these and make it perfect, you’re never going to make it to 50k. So take off your backspace key, move your finished pages into a separate document, whatever you need to do to make sure you’re always looking forward instead of back. It’s quantity over quality, process over product.
8. Have fun!
There’s a reason I think of NaNoWriMo as a thirty-day holiday. It’s not just about making something or even about challenging yourself, but it’s about taking the Serious Writer gloves off and just letting yourself play around in a new world with some new friends. I rarely follow an outline or even fully think out my ideas before November 1st, which means I’m usually discovering the plot right alongside my characters and my docs are riddled with phrases like “[insert name of villain later]” (I never do) and “They headed off to the place to find a thing that they needed for some stuff” and “I smiled, which I already did twice in the last paragraph but you know what we’re going with it anyway.” I make endless memes about the process of writing while putting off my daily wordcount. I add obscure references for the one (1) person in the groupchat who will actually read this, give my characters silly middle names, and stay up too late eating Halloween candy while doing word-sprint marathons. National Novel Writing Month is truly whatever you make it, and I like to make mine as chaotic and weird and fun as possible.
So I guess now is the part where I walk the walk, and go work on my novel rather than writing almost exactly 1667 words of this blog post instead. Or I could copy-paste this post into my novel doc and call it good for the day. Just kidding… unless?
If you’re doing NaNoWriMo, whether it’s for the first time or the tenth, feel free to add me as a buddy on the official site @rainyoctober or follow me on Twitter, where I’ll be doing sprints, procrastinating, and posting some of the most absurd snippets of my WIP. And good luck! You are a noveling superstar.