During NaNoWriMo there is one thing we all have in common. It doesn’t matter how many books you have published. It doesn’t matter how many times you have attempted NaNoWriMo. Once November starts we are up against the clock! Every word counts and momentum is everything. In light of this I wanted to share some thoughts on keeping your momentum so you can hit your word count goals.
NaNoWriMo starts out with an ambitious goal, 50,000 words in 30 days. That’s a lot of writing to get done. Many of us are starting new projects for NaNo and at times it can seem like forward momentum is hard to keep. My suggestion? Don’t stop. Literally just type and type and type. Have a character that suddenly needs a name? Put it in all caps and come back. Have an idea you feel like could have been said better? A scene that needs more work? Throw a note down, highlight it and come back. The heart of NaNoWriMo is about progress. Often I find that the energy of a scene fades if I have to stop and think about something. This is why I was encouraging you to get a few things nailed down before you started way back in October. The more you know abut the world the less you will have to pause to come come up with something. However when something does make you pause, make a decision and plow forward. We live in the age of the word processor, copy and paste, find and replace, all of the tools we have mean that nothing we write is set in stone!
Earlier I said NaNoWriMo is all about progress and that is especially true for my second point. November is just the first step on your journey to finishing your novel. You don’t need to get everything perfect, you just need to get it out. Don’t revise anything until you have to. I find that many writers are tempted to go back and revise their first sentence, their first paragraph and their first chapter. November will end before you realize it and it is important that you have more than just a chapter or two. Writers must eventually accept the fact that their first draft will never be perfect (or any good, really). You will spend a lot more time revising and rewriting your work later, that is when you need to focus on getting everything perfect. November is for taking your story and getting it out of your head and onto the paper. NaNoWriMo is for telling your story and every word counts! So write like the wind!
That said, sometimes you will boot up the story noodle in your head and there will be nothing there. During these times I do go back through my draft and look for those character names and highlighted notes. I update the story looking for my next move, but only when I have no more scenes to write. Rewriting, editing and revision will not add much to your word counts but it can help light the way forward if you are stuck.
Finally, we come to the most counterintuitive point of them all. The word count does not matter. Yeah you heard me! Let’s say you wake up everyday and you give your story all the attention you can. That’s great! Then you look on twitter and find three of your friends have written 10,000 words in one day. It can be hard to stay optimistic if it feels like you are falling behind. Listen, 50,000 words set by the organizers are simply a guideline. I have yet to finish a manuscript that was under 50,000 words (and it usually takes me longer than a month or two!). Fantasy stories tend to run long like that. Other stories like a romantic comedies or young adult works might run shorter. The importance is that you get your story out in however many words it takes to tell it. Don’t be discouraged if you are not hitting the word goals or if your friends are achieving more words than you. Just write your story, that’s the most important thing.
So those are my quick tips! Now stop reading this and get back to writing. Only you can tell your story, so get out there and write it down.