Dear O'Abby: I won NaNo - What now?

 Dear O'Abby,

I didn't think I'd do it, but I actually won NaNo this year.  I wrote just over 60K in November and finished a whole book.  I've tried a couple of time before and never finished, and there were times this month I was certain I'd fail again, but I did it!

But what do I do now?  

This is the first novel I've ever actually finished and I'm super excited for people to be able to read it.  How do I get it published now?

Sincerely,

NaNo Winner

Dear NaNo Winner,

Congratulations!  Winning NaNo is a great feeling, right?  And you should be proud of yourself.  It's no mean feat to write 60K in a month!  Celebrate that.

But...

You're not finished.

Writing that first draft is only the beginning of the journey.  The best thing you can do right now is put those words you wrote in November aside and take a break.  Or, if you're still buzzing from the habit of writing every day, start something new.  Start a new book, or if you're not sure you have the energy or ideas, write some short stories or flash fiction.  Write a journal.

Just don't touch that novel you wrote.

You need at least a month or two away from those words.  Maybe even three.  Then you will have enough distance from what you wrote to go back and look at it with some perspective. Any first draft needs work, and from my experience, NaNo drafts need more than most because of the speed they're written at.

So, when you've let that MS rest a while, go back and re-read it.  Write yourself notes about what works and what doesn't.  Check for inconsistencies like a character being called Leon on page 12, 27 and 42, then being called Luke throughout the rest of the book or someone whose startlingly blue eyes become brown or green at some later point.  Or those places where a day get stretched or compressed (people don't usually eat breakfast and then go straight to bed, exhausted).  There are likely to be all kinds of things you find that don't 100% make sense from giant plot holes to places where characters do or say things that seem out of character.

Once you've found all the things that are wrong with your draft, you can fix them.  Then let the book rest a few weeks and go back again.  I guarantee you'll find a whole raft of other issues this time through.

Rinse. Repeat.

Writing that first draft is only the beginning.  I am literally only now reaching the point with my 2020 NaNo project where it is getting close to being ready to think about publication.  And I think probably only about 30% of the words I wrote in 2020 are still there.  But it's worth doing the work.  And then getting readers to go through to find all the things you missed on your own.

Publishing is super competitive and if you want to find an agent, or even if you're planning to self-publish, you want to put your best out there.  So don't rush it.  I know it's exciting to have finished and thrilling to imagine readers diving into story you wrote, but take the time to make sure it's the best possible book you can write first.

Once again, congratulations on finishing.

And good luck with revising!

X O'Abby

Dear O'Abby: Can you help me win NaNo?

 Dear O'Abby,

This will be my third year attempting NaNo and I am yet to actually hit that 50K target.  I have spent the last two months preparing this time, and feel like I'm in a better place than I have been previously - I actually have an outline this time - but am still feeling a little daunted.

Are there any tips you can give me that might help me actually win this year?

Thanks so much!

NaNoNaughty

Dear NaNoNaughty,

You do realize NaNo isn't actually a competition, right?  Winning isn't everything and if your primary goal is to win, then I think you're looking at this the wrong way.  The goal is to get a book written and any words you get on the page are helping to meet that goal, even if you don't get to 50K.

As for tips, I do have a few after having done this a few times myself, so here goes... I've probably given these before, but a refresher never hurts.

Try and bank over the baseline word count in the first week while you're still fresh and excited by your story.  I always try to hit 10K within the first three or four days because it gives you a cushion later in the month when you may unexpectedly get de-railed for a day or two.

Don't stop if you get stuck on a word or a plot point or a place you're uncertain about.  Leave a note for yourself, highlight it or change the font color so you can find it again later, and move on.  You mentioned you have an outline, so if you're stuck somewhere, look over the stuff you've plotted, figure out the next place you do know what's going to happen and skip to there.  You can fill in the rest later when you've figured it out.

Don't be afraid to jump around and write random scenes if that's what's going to work for you.  You don't have to be linear at this point.  You're just getting the story down, so if there are specific scenes you're excited to write, go ahead and write them.  You can add the connecting tissue later.

Don't go back over anything you've already written.  It's too easy to get bogged down in trying to fix things and at this point you're not here to fix things.  Just keep writing.  There will be time to go back and fix things later.  The last time I did NaNo I decided to change a huge plot point I'd set up in the first three or four chapters in later ones, so I just left it, wrote myself a note, and kept going without the school play that was going to be a huge element in the story up until that point.

And despite what everyone probably tells you, you don't actually have to write every day.  I "won" NaNo the last time I did it by taking a day or two off work a week for the four weeks of NaNo and wrote most of the 50K words I got that year in those 6 days, with a little bit added in the weekends.  If writing in big chunks works for you, then maybe consider this as an option.  Or if you can't take days off, but your weekends are reasonably clear, set those aside for bulk writing and adjust your goals for the week to fit your schedule.

Hope that helps!  And good luck.  I'm rotting for you to finish.

X O'Abby

NaNoWriMo Tips

There were no new questions for O'Abby this week, so on NaNo Eve, I thought I'd offer a few things about doing NaNo I've learned over the years.  I've done it several times and while I haven't won every year,  I think my ratio of finishing to not finishing is pretty high.

This year the timing works really well because November 1 is a Friday.  That means you have the weekend to really kick off your project.  I always like to try and get ahead on word count at the beginning of the month, while you're fresh and the idea for your book is bright and shiny in your head.  And with the start of the month coinciding with the weekend, you're likely going to have a chance to get a few extra hours writing time in.

So use them.  Try and get at least 5K written over the weekend, more if you can.  That word count buffer will come in handy if something happens during the month and you're forced to miss a few days or if your writing time during the week is more limited and you think you might only manage 1,000 words a day.

Plan your time.  If you have regular commitments that are going to eat into your regular writing time, see if you can carve out some other time to write.  Use your lunch breaks at work, maybe.  Or your commute, if you use public transport.  It's amazing how much you can get done in tiny scraps of time.  500 words here, another 700 there and before you know it, you've made your daily word count.  Don't feel you have to find 90 minutes of uninterrupted time each day to do this.

Don't panic if you fall behind.  It happens.  Life can get in the way of even the best laid plans.  If you get behind, figure out where you can catch up.  Maybe an extra hour's writing time over the weekend will do it.  Or getting up a little earlier and writing before you really start your day.  Whatever works for you.  Personally, I know I'm going to struggle to get much done during the week the next couple of weeks, because I'm just wrapping up a major project at work.  So my plan is to take a few days off once I've finished that, so I can devote those days to writing.  But that might not be possible for you, so figure out what is, and make it work for you.

Don't worry about the details.  NaNo writing is fast writing.  You're doing it to spill that story out onto the page, not to create a polished masterpiece.  That comes later.  Right now, don't worry about repeated words, awkward sentences or getting the details of how something works wrong.  Just write your story.  If you find yourself questioning something and are tempted to Google, just write yourself a note in the manuscript so when you go back to re-read what you've written, you're reminded you needed to look up how long it would take to get from London to Edinburgh on horseback in 1865.  I like to leave those notes in another color so they stand out to me later.

The same if you realize you got something wrong earlier in the story and need to change it to make the rest of the book make sense.  Write a note at the point you realized this and remind yourself to go back and change that thing later.  NaNo is not to write a final draft.  I don't even call my NaNo drafts first drafts.  They're vomit drafts or zero drafts.  What you work with later to create an actual first draft.

And finally, it doesn't actually matter if you don't hit 50K.  Why matters is you tried.  You got some words on the page and just because November ends and your novel is only 34K, it doesn't mean you failed.  You have the beginning of your book there, and all you need to do is keep writing.  Maybe in another 30 days you'll have 60K.  And in another, a finished book.

So good luck!  Happy writing!  And if you need a buddy to cheer you on, you'll find me on the NaNo site as Vampyr14.

Dear O'Abby: Should I do NaNo?

Dear O'Abby,

As you are probably aware, NaNoWriMo starts next week.  I've thought about doing it in the past, but I'm a pretty methodical writer and I like to research and edit as I go, so I've always thought it wouldn't suit me.  

Now I'm published and on deadline for my next book, I'm wondering if doing NaNo might be a way to get this second book my publisher is expecting finished.

Should I give it a shot?

X NaNoWaRy

Dear NaNoWaRy,

NaNo isn't for everyone and it's really up to you to decide if it is for you.  Personally, I love it, but I'm a 100% pantser and have no problem at all with reaching a point where I need to research something and just leaving myself a note in red or highlighted in yellow saying "look up the Korean word for Grandma" or "do combine harvesters really work like this?".  If this kind of thing is going to drive you batty and keep you up at night because you don't feel you can keep writing until you're certain you got that detail correct, NaNo might not be for you.

NaNo is a great way to vomit up what I like to call a "zero draft".  It's not even a first draft, really.  It's a bunch of words that may one day end up as a story.  It's a way to get that story out of your head and onto the page where it can begin its life.

Some people outline and prep meticulously before NaNo begins, and I imagine they might write something closer to a first draft during the month because they know what they're going to write ahead of time and have, in some cases, outlined exactly how their book will be structured and how to fit writing 1,667 or so words a day into that structure.

If you're someone who likes to go back and read over what you wrote yesterday and polish it up, moving commas and removing extra words, NaNo might not be right for you.

But as I say, it's a personal choice.  Maybe trying something different might be good for your creativity.   And you know what?  It doesn't matter if you don't make it through the whole month.  At least you've started.  You've written something.  Those words don't disappear at the end of November when you don't "win" NaNo.  You've started your book, and that's the best way to get to the point of finishing it.

So good luck, whatever you decide to do.  I've rather stupidly signed up to do NaNo again this year, so I'll be in the trenches with you, trying to write a book that at the moment has an outline that says only, "Fifteen years after Chasing the Taillights, Lucy and Tony are still struggling with their relationship".

Let's catch up in December to see how we did.

X O'Abby

The NaNoWriMo Finish Line

Its the last day of NaNoWriMo and all over the world, writers are sprinting to hit their word goals. Many writers have already hit them and are collapsing into writing comas as we speak. I personally have written only a couple of words at a time since hitting my 50,000. My autumn of writing madness has burned me out, as it usually does.

But to all of you that have finished NaNo already- Congratulations! You did it! You wrote a whole novel in a month. That is a crazy accomplishment and you should be proud. Even if you don't like a single word you wrote. That's what editing is for after all. But for now, take a break.

I mean it. Lock up your manuscripts in a vault, or at the very least a folder on your computer that says DO NOT TOUCH. Go for a walk. Read a book. Reclaim your social life. Take a moment to breathe. You've done quite a bit of writing and you deserve to relax. I personally recommend setting your MS aside for at least a month before you look at it again. For one thing, it gives you your time and for another, it distances you from the manuscript.

And even if you didn't reach your word goal, that's okay. There's always next year. And every word counts. Fast drafting is a skill and its not required to be a successful writer. No matter what you wrote, be proud of it.

And now, if you'll excuse me, I have my own writing coma to fall into. That and final exams. *Shudders*

Happy NaNoWriMo!

NaNoWriMo Tips- Fresh Eyes

A little while ago, I talked about fast drafting and ways to power through a draft without second guessing yourself. One of my tips was turn your inner editor off.

Well, as I've discovered this NaNoWriMo, that advice is much better applied to completely new projects. When a project is fresh, its a lot easier to go crazy without checking back to make sure you're pacing it right or that your characters are likable. Though I always say outlining helps a lot with NaNoWriMo, no matter how much you outline, the story is still a surprise. You have nothing to compare it to yet. The editor in you won't really make an appearance until a few months later.

Not so with rewriting. This month, I decided to finally rewrite, from scratch, my first ever novel. This is my baby. The thing that, in effect, has been in progress since seventh grade. Yeah. That long. Seven years I guess. I didn't actually finish the first novel until I was fifteen, and ever since then I've been editing and rewriting and trying new things with it.

Well, this month I said, enough. I decided I would look on the story with fresh eyes and write it completely from scratch. But its hard to do that when the story is so close to your heart. You already know your characters and story so well, you judge every single word you write. Several times over this month, I've wanted to change things because I didn't feel like my characters were coming across in the right way. Four days into NaNoWriMo, I completely started over to change the point of view. Usually, starting over is a big no, no. And while I like the changes I'm making, writing them can be like wading through mud some days.

Long story short, I won't be using NaNoWriMo for a big redraft like this again. While I have powered through and I expect to hit 50,000 words today (thanks in part to a few 10,000 word sprints that have left me in a writing coma), its been a lot more of a struggle than usual. Next NaNoWriMo, I'm definitely going to start with a fresh concept.

So what is easiest for you to fast draft? Do certain genres work better for you when you speed write? And how is NaNo going for you so far?

Soldier on writers! You can hit that 50,000 words! And if you don't, that's okay too. At least you wrote something, and that is always a thing to be proud of.