Reflecting on NaNo

 There were no questions for O'Abby today, so I thought I'd use this space today to go through some of the things that worked for me during this year's NaNo, and things that didn't.  Hopefully this will be useful for those of you who may not have ever attempted NaNo before, as well as those seasoned veterans.

Let's start with the things that did work...

1. Starting with a bang.  It was great that this year November 1 was a Sunday, because it meant I didn't have to try and fit writing in around the day job and all the other commitments we all juggle on weekdays.  I dedicated a few hours of the day to writing and managed to blitz just over 4,000 words on the first day. Having some extra words in the bank gave me some peace of mind on days when I only managed 500 or so words because of outside pressures.

2. Dedicated writing days.  I took one day off work each week during NaNo (and two days the first week) to dedicate to writing.  This was fantastic and I managed around 6K on each of these dedicated writing days, and because they were usually Friday, it was a great inspiration leading into the weekends where I had a few spare hours and generally managed to add another 4-5K.

3. A loose outline. Any of you who know me, know I don't tend to outline my books before I write them.  This time, because I was basing the book on Shakespeare, I had a basic structure to work from even without writing an outline.  I found this tremendously helpful with the fast drafting because I had a guide for where I needed to go next.

4. Music. This is something that works for some books and not for others.  Some books (like The Sidewalks Regrets) have a very specific soundtrack that I refer to and use throughout the writing process to get myself into the right mood and mindset to write individual scenes.  My NaNo book this year had a very distinct soundtrack that helped me find the mood and motivation and emotional tone for various parts of the story.

5. Writing forward and not stopping. This is a must when fast drafting.  Don't go back and rewrite anything, even when you know you took a wrong turn somewhere further back.  Leave yourself a note and move on.  You can fix those things later.  I made a whole lot of mistakes in the early part of my book this year, but I'll fix them later.  As I got to know my characters better through the writing process, things I wrote early on will no longer fit or make sense.  But that's okay.  That's what revision is for!

And things that didn't work...

1. Writing every day.  I wanted to, but there were days where I only managed 400 words because there just wasn't time to do anything more.  I tried not to beat myself up about it because I knew I had words in the bank to make up for those days, but it's hard not to.

2. Writing at home. My most productive writing days were at the library.  There are too many distractions at home, even when I turn off the internet to keep them to a minimum.  There's always cleaning that needs to be done, gardening, laundry and other chores that suddenly seem super urgent whenever I sit down to write.  Leaving the house and going somewhere else means that while the chores don't go away, I'm not so aware of them.

3. Two days off in a row. The first week of NaNo I took two days off to write.  They were both productive, but I found the second day much more of a struggle and wrote considerably less than on the first.  Possibly because my back was sore from sitting in the same chair for so many hours when I'm not used to sitting for long periods.  If I take two days off in a week again next year, I will try not to have them consecutive.

Hopefully these reflections are of use to you.  Do let us know how you got on with NaNo.  Did you 'win'?  Do you have anything that worked well for you while you were writing this month?

NaNo and Slow Drafters

My name is Becky Mahoney, and I am a plotter.

I am a plotter to the extent that it makes drafting very, very slow. I like to get the wording very precise in my head before I lay it all out there. I didn't used to be this way, but I always say that learning how to revise properly kind of ruined me for drafting. Once I realized how good I could be, it was difficult to give myself permission to be terrible.

So having tried NaNoWriMo with very little success in the past, I always assumed it was just completely antithetical to the way I worked. Of course, I was always in the middle of a project when November rolled around, so I always tried to log 50k on that project with very little success. It's difficult enough to produce 50k in one month. But to produce 50k of good words? I'm sure it's been done, but I am nowhere near that amazing.

My participation this year was sort of a last-minute snap decision. All of my current projects were going slowly or stalling because I was stuck on the words, stuck on making them right in one go. I needed to stretch my drafting muscles. So I decided to do that with a completely blank slate. I chose a vague idea that had taken up residence in my brain over the last week of October, and I went for it with very little planning. Had I made this decision earlier, I might have made myself an outline ahead of time. But I dove in with only a few story beats mapped out in my head.

I am someone who, on a good day, is lucky to get to 500 words. 1000 is in the high end of my daily word count more often than not, and very rarely, I will write more, especially if I'm close to some watermark, like the end of a chapter (or the manuscript.) Today is November 14th, and I am sitting at 30,000 words.

They are, of course, not good words. Much of what I have is wheel-spinning, repeated conversations, clunky exposition, and loads and loads of telling. It is, in essence, a very long dry run for this project.

But I have a separate document going with all the ideas I'm having along the way: changes to the setting, various plot twists, logistical kinks to work out. I'm getting a chance to hash out voices and character dynamics without having to worry about hewing to my outline. And I'm getting a sense of just how much I can get done when I turn my internal editor off and just enjoy drafting.

I am a plotter. That much has not changed - actually, this experience has emphasized it for me. But NaNo is teaching me some excellent new tricks. And I look forward to using them.

I'll see you all at 50k!

The Key to Speed Drafting

Taking a break from my usual Reasons for Requesting or Rejecting, let's talk about speed drafting. We are, as we all know, only a couple weeks out from the start of National Novel Writing Month. The month of November in which every writer loses their social life. Everywhere, aspiring and established authors sit down in coffee shops or libraries or the isolation of their own bedrooms and try to crank out 1,667 words a day. Its a pretty daunting task, especially if you're not used to speed drafting.

But for me, speed drafting is the only way to write a book. Its just how my mind works. I tend to be very ADD and a book that sparks my fancy one month might lose my interest in the next. As such, I need to set goals for myself or I'd never finish writing a book. For every MS I've written, I have always written the majority of the first drafts in one month.

In fact, for the third year now, I am doing Octowrimo in addition to Nanowrimo. Its become an odd tradition now for me to have a 'Two book Autumn'. The first year, I started writing a novel in October and ended up finishing it because I wanted to start fresh on something for November. The second year I just got so excited about one new idea that I wrote it before September was out. I did Octowrimo after that and ended up getting too burned out to do Nanowrimo that year. And this year its Octowrimo again. I've done a lot of speed drafting so let's look at a few tips for how to crank out words fast.

1) Know Everything
Yep. Just know everything ever. Just kidding. But you do have to know everything about your world in characters. Establish everything in your head and get a good feel for the story you want to right. The better you understand your characters, the better they'll speak to you when you have to write about them. Your character might surprise you in the midst of the writing process. That's just what characters do. But you can at least TRY to know everything about them. Knowing your characters will especially help the dialogue flow. And knowing your world will make descriptions go a lot faster.

2) Outline
Seriously. I know that there are probably a lot of pantsers out there and if you absolutely, one hundred percent, can't outline, then don't. HOWEVER knowing the basic trajectory of your story can be very useful. For one thing, it influences how you write your beginnings, but more importantly, it gives you the ability to skip around.

For example, say you're having a lot of trouble writing this one scene. Its just not flowing at all. You're not in the mood. But there's this scene later in the book that you REALLY want to write at the moment. If you've outlined and you know where this scene fits in the story you can jump ahead and write that one. You can go back and fill in the blanks later. As long as the draft gets done, who cares what order you write it in. You're going to end up editing the crap out of it later anyway. And speaking of which...

3) Turn off that Inner Editor
Your speed drafts will be crap. This is a fact of life. The MS I'm writing right now? Hate it. Its awful. The dialogue prattles on for too long and there isn't nearly enough description. I use 'was' maybe ten times a page. I haven't even bothered to check on my punctuation.

But does that matter? Nope. Because the first draft isn't about making it perfect. Its about getting the thing down on paper. Your inner editor will be tempted to fix things. 'PLEASE let me go back and rewrite this chapter,' it will say. But you have to squash that voice down. Accept that your first draft will be crap, and you can let yourself go.

4) Find your Writing Time
In the end, none of this matters if you can't carve out a decent writing time. Find the place and time of day when you are most productive and lock yourself in. Inform your friends and family that you love them dearly but that you have to write. If they know you, they'll probably understand. And hey, if you write fast enough, you'll have time to spend with them later. But be intentional about when you are going to write. Don't dawdle and drift to youtube to watch cat videos. Sit down and get yourself typing. Because at 1,667 words a day, you'll have a novel by the end of the month. And that's pretty cool.

So are you prepping for Nanowrimo? If not, you really should try it out. Speed drafting might not be for you but at least you can say you tried it. And most people can't even say that. Happy typing!