Part 2: NaNoWriMo – National Novel Writing Month

In Part 1, I provided a brief overview of the writing process and how, by focusing on one step at a time, a writer, especially a beginner can work their way through the initial fear of the blank page.

In Part 2, I’m focusing on step 2 of the writing process – Writing the Draft.  This step is often a significant hurdle for any writer but especially for the beginner.  As a beginner, we often try to do too much at once and think that the draft has to be perfect.  Very few people can write a final version in their first draft, that’s why it’s called a draft J  In fact, most writers tend to write a very rough draft first and then add layers to it.  These subsequent layers will focus on descriptions, emotions, smoothing transitions, filling plot holes etc. 

Why is it so important to write a rough draft?   One comment I often hear from fellow writers is that they can easily get through the first three chapters of their story.   They revise and edit those first three chapters until they are perfect.  Sometimes they even enter these chapters into contests.  But often, they never finish the story.  Can an unfinished book be published?  No.  Famous authors may be able to sell their book with a partial manuscript but even they must finish their book before it can be published.  That’s why you need to focus on finishing your story – don’t worry about how good it is.   Once you have a finished draft, you can start adding to it and fixing it.

NaNoWriMo – the National Novel Writing Month (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) is a worldwide challenge to write 50K words in 30 days.  It runs from November 1 to November 30 each year.  In order to reach the 50K goal, you need to write 1667 words a day.   Estimating 250 words per page, that amounts to about 7 pages per day. For most beginner writers who also hold day jobs and have families, this can appear to be a very daunting task. But it is doable!  The important thing is to persevere.  If you have days where you are less productive, don’t worry, you have the remainder of the month to catch up.  However, given the very tight schedule, you must force yourself to always move forward, to focus on writing and not editing or revising since both of those activities will result in a lower word count for the day. 

How can I ignore the revising/editor devil sitting on my shoulder?  I’ve heard many wonderful suggestions from my fellow writers ranging from writing with your monitor turned off to using an AlphaSmart that has an interface that discourages editing.  This is a big change from the way most of us write but try it.  You’ll be pleased when you see your word count going up and up and …

How can I keep myself motivated?  This year, I am participating in NaNoWriMo along with fellow writers who’ve banded together to form a NaNo Insanity Support group. We have a mailing list and each day we send in our daily and total word counts.  One of the group members maintains an excel spreadsheet for the group that shows each person’s daily and overall totals.  We celebrate with each other each time one of us passes a significant milestone and we give each other encouragement and support whenever one of us encounters a life event that pulls us away from writing.

The NaNoWriMo website (http://www.nanowrimo.org/) is also a very good source of motivation.  Your daily and overall totals are tracked and there is a graph that shows you if you are behind or ahead of where you need to be to meet the 50K goal.  You can also add other NaNoWriMo writers as your Writing Buddies and you can see their progress.  If you are even a little bit competitive, this can work as a very good incentive to pick up the pace when you feel yourself lagging behind.

How can I make time to write? Everyone has to decide what works best for them but since NaNoWriMo is a 30 day challenge, it is definitely possible to make a deal with your family like – for the next 30 days, I will be blocking off 2 hours each morning or 2 hours each night for writing.  Writing everyday will become a habit that will stay with you for your post-NaNo writing efforts.  It will also increase your productivity and have the added bonus of “training” your family to leave you alone during your writing time.

Where can I write? You will probably need to try different locations to see what works best for you but if you have a laptop, you can basically work anywhere you want. I’ve heard suggestions from fellow writers regarding writing in their car while they wait for their kids to get out of school or finish a sports practice or music lessons, etc.  Many writers don’t have a private office so they go to coffee shops or to the library.  Still others use their kitchen or dining room tables.  All of these environments can be fairly noisy and many overcome this issue by listening to music with earbuds or using noise cancellation headphones to block out the sound of their children running around J

Whether you use NaNoWriMo-like goals or your own personal deadlines to get your draft written, the main thing to remember is that without a draft of your story, you really have nothing more than a concept.

Focus on quantity instead of quality and try to complete a first draft of the entire story before you go back and start layering and revising.  Don’t worry if you think it’s “crap”.  As many published authors say, crap can be fixed, a blank page can’t.

I’d love to hear your thoughts on this blog entry so please leave me your comments!