Yeah yeah, I know this is a departure from the schedule I have set out, but I took a nice, long, spontaneous writing break, which means I haven't been writing at all. Here or elsewhere. I needed that break. It's been a rough year. But the month or so I took with zero writing and editing has me rearing to go.
Which is nice, because NaNoWriMo starts on Saturday.
Yeah. I know it's insane. I'm importing and selling 5,000 pairs of shoes, moving house (farm, actually) and editing three books for publishing. Oh and critiquing everyone who's helping me edit. But write, I want to write. So I'm joining NaNo despite my best intentions not to.
It's not really bothering me, because I know my NaNo will be a stress free experience. You know how I know? Because last year I won while editing for publishing and moving house. Okay, so my work-load is huge in comparison, but I don't care.
Why?
Because NaNoWriMo isn't about winning for me.
Let that sink in. Repeat that for yourself and see if you don't already feel liberated. See, people always put a ton of focus on WRITE 50K IN ONE MONTH!
But here's the thing: it's really about finishing a novel. Or if you're going to take it as far as me, it's about getting that much closer to finishing a novel.
So if I manage to write only 10k in November, it's still 10k I wouldn't have had if I didn't use NaNo to encourage myself to write.
If I don't make my goal (especially possible given everything else that needs to get done), it doesn't matter. It only really matters that I've gotten something done.
Last year, I resigned myself to not winning, because of all the stuff I had to do. And I won. Easily. Why? Because I didn't stress. Instead, I kept writing little bits here and there as I got a chance.
It put me in a place where I could actually write the winning amount of words in one weekend.
And you know what I did in December? I kept right on writing.
No exhaustion. No writer's block. Nothing. Just words.
That's the big thing I hope you all will take away from this:
NaNoWriMo shouldn't be a whip that lashes you every time you just can't write. It should be the carrot dangling in front of you to keep you wanting to write.
And I'm not talking about wanting to write because you should. I'm talking about wanting to write because you want to write. If writing's turning into an obligation for you, watch out, because that's just setting yourself up to fail.
With this public service announcement out the way, I'm signing off for now. I'll still be addressing technical stuff about writing, but I'll probably keep things more along the "how to keep going when everything sucks" line. Just to keep things relevant for NaNo.
If you have any questions or would like any NaNo survival tips, please ask me in the comments. If your questions inspires me to write a section, I'll dedicate it to you.
Coming up in 100 Things:
Ideas and Cliches
Preparing for NaNo
General Advice for NaNo Survival
World Building (Dedicated to Jane Corinne)
Internal Logic
YOU ARE READING
100 Things You Should Know About Writing (Part 1)
Non-FictionThis is about writing, as I think of it. Subjects covered will range from plot aspects to characterization, writing craft to just surviving as a writer. Mainly, Part 1 is a comprehensive list of things to do in order to create and maintain tension.
