NaNoWriMo - Here I come!

Less than 2 days before NaNoWriMo officially starts, and as the day gets closer I find that a lot of the writing blogs I follow are posting their words of advice and great tips for the new comers to NaNo. I am doing my best to take all of their advice and use it the best way that I can. These tips come from veterans of NaNo and even people who have published a book or two.

SamProof over at The Path to Publication wrote a post on NaNo that really made me think. He called it Nanowrimo How to Schedule Your Time. The first thing I remember about NaNo in the beginning was someone saying that if you just write 1,667 words a day you'll get to your 50,000 by November 30th. While, in theory, this is correct (divide 50,000 by 30=1,667) it is not the best way to approach NaNo. SamProof points out the obvious in his post. What about taking a day off? What about Thanksgiving? I'm pretty sure my family would be fairly unhappy with me when I excuse myself for a few hours because I have to get my 1,667 words out that day. Besides, the fingers and the brain have to take a break at some point. Sam suggests taking at least one full day off from writing a week and definitely taking Thanksgiving off. In short my new goal will be 2,084 words per day, and I am comfortable with that. By no means am I going to stop writing for the day once I hit my magic number.
Got 2,084 words and it's only 11:00am. I'm done! That would be plain silly. I will be using it as a marker and should I be faced with writer's block at least I'll know how many more words I need to put down to make my quota. Then I can focus on something else for a bit and return to my writing.

I promise that during the month of November I will not start any posts off like
I wrote a few thousand words today and I feel great. Or I have horrible writer's block and I don't know what to do. How boring would those posts turn out to be?! I will, however, update you from time to time with my progress, but you will be able to see it any time you visit. I'm sure you have noticed my word count widget over there on the right side of my blog. That's the best place to look when you are interested in knowing how I am doing.

I hope I am able to achieve my goal and that this experience will be both fun and become a tradition with me. I have my family and friends supporting me and all of my new NaNo writers to help me in a bind.

I wish all of you good luck and I'll see you at the finish line! And remember, those 50,000 words could be the next best seller.


6 comments:

kuppak๏ffy said...

I'm getting nervous but I'm just going to do my best and believe that maybe my 50,000 words novel could very well be the next best seller. Wishing your well and much success!

You got my support~

Bob Johnson said...

Lol, wow 2084 words a day, I wish I were a better writer, I have something to say but it's like I'm fighting each and every step to get out what I want to say.

Anonymous said...

Hey, thanks for stopping by my blog! I tried nanowrimo the past few years, but never quite made it. I'm thinking about starting this month, though. Who knows what could happen?

Jessi said...

Best of luck with your writing! :D

Kate Lord Brown said...

Good luck! I'm feeling rather nervous as a newbie ...

Sadie said...

Do you know what you're going to write about yet? I thought about doing it but I just can't designate that much time to writing right now. Good luck! I'll be keeping tracking and bugging you about it. :p