5 Tips for a Successful NaNoWriMo

Each November, thousands of writers across the globe test their mettle in the time-honored tradition of National Novel Writing Month (or NaNoWriMo, for short). Over the course of a single month, participants go from zero to sixty in an attempt to complete a 50,000-word manuscript before midnight strikes on the final night. If this sounds like a ridiculously hard challenge, that’s because…it sort of is. It’s not meant to be easy. It’s meant to push writers to their limits in order to drive greater creativity than ever before. "Give in to your muse," "let your fingers fly," and all that jazz.

In order to meet the illustrious 50,000-word goal, participants will need to write an average of 1,666.7 words a day. That’s hard. In fact, for notoriously slow writers such as myself (who labor over every single sentence and spend most of their writing time REwriting), it can seem downright impossible.

In this piece, I am going to share some tips and tricks I have gathered over the course of four NaNoWriMo attempts (and two successes) to help you achieve that 50,000-word goal. As a bit of a disclaimer, I consider the creative process to be an incredibly personal enterprise; there is no “one-size-fits-all” recommendation I can make. But if you're in the market for examples of what’s worked well for someone else, read on for my advice.

1. Build a banging playlist

I recommend this for three main reasons.

First: because building a playlist is fun. It hypes you up for the month to come.

Second: because returning to the same music every day will make it easier to get in the zone. For me, turning on my WIP playlist is like flipping a switch in my brain. My mood immediately rearranges from whatever I'd been feeling that day. As soon as that first song starts to play, I'm concentrating on what I want to accomplish in my story. It makes the words flow faster.

And third: because I strongly believe you can learn something about your story through the process of curating. In building your playlist, you will have to make conscious decisions about tone, voice, and pace that will start the creative gears turning. You could find a song that teaches you something new about one of your characters. You could find a lyric that sparks some new plot point. It might sound silly, but I think it really does make a difference. If I’d written my WIP to heavy-metal bangers instead of chill vibes, it’d probably be much less cottage-core ghost-story and much more zombie apocalypse.

The trick is to do this before the month actually begins. Otherwise, you’ll just be cutting in to potential writing time with productive procrastination.

2. Make a plan

There are generally considered to be two main categories of writers in this world: pantsers (as in, those who fly by the seat of their pants) and plotters (which is self-explanatory). If you’re in Camp Pantser, NaNoWriMo is already your jam. Part of the fun for you is in the discovery of what comes next. But if you’re a plotter, or something in between the two, the idea of traveling without a roadmap can be paralyzing.

According to the official rules, writing officially starts at 12:00am on November 1st and ends at 11:59:59pm on November 30th. No words written prior to the start date can be counted towards the final total. However, there are no rules barring the use of an outline. If it’s going to help get you closer to those 50,000 words, you can bring whatever notes you need to the table.

Because I’m a hybrid writer, I don’t go in to a project knowing exactly what is going to happen. Instead, I like to plot a number of key beats in the beginning, middle, and end, and then allow the process of writing to build the tissues that bind these moments together. I consider it an ordered kind of chaos. It allows me to explore my characters/story in ways I didn’t expect while still having a goal in mind. For your project, use whatever approach works best for you.

Another element of “making a plan” is visualizing what your month will need to look like in order to finish by November 30th. If you know you’re going to be out of commission on certain days (such as holidays), try to get ahead so that you’re not playing catch-up. If you have to build dedicated writing time into your schedule to avoid falling behind, then do it. Set mini-challenges for when you’d like to be a quarter/half/or three-quarters of the way through.

3. Turn off your inner editor

The point of NaNoWriMo is to get as many words on to the page as possible. Your manuscript doesn't have to be pretty; that’s what editing is for later on. It just has to be done. If you second-guess every other line, you’re never going to hit the speed you need in order to finish by the end of the month.

I will be the first to acknowledge that turning off your inner editor is easier said than done. It takes a lot of practice. If you find yourself really struggling to hit your groove, I would recommend breaking your writing time up into sprints. These are dedicated sessions of 20-30 minutes where you challenge yourself to write as many words as possible. Try it with a buddy if you need someone to hold you accountable. For added difficulty, the Most Dangerous Writing App will even start deleting your progress if you don’t write fast enough. If that’s not incentive to let go of your inner editor and keep charging blindly ahead, I don’t know what is.

As a notoriously slow writer myself, I have struggled for years to develop strategies to shut down my inner critic. Ultimately, what’s helped the most was finally accepting the fact that first drafts will never be perfect. In fact, they will often be shit. However, you can’t fix something that hasn’t been built. There's a certain kind of comfort in the acceptance of this fact. And eliminating distractions/wielding tricks to build up discipline can help.

4. Share your progress

I always find the best way to hold myself accountable to a creative project is to talk about it with other people (as difficult as that may sometimes be). You can do this on your own—either by posting about it on social media, talking about it with your friends/family, or by discussing your project with other writers in your circle— or you can find a new community by registering your participation on the official NaNoWriMo site. The platform enables writers connect with other participants through forums, regional groups, and opportunities to get involved. Solidarity is a great motivator to help push you through the messy middle of the month. So is the knowledge that you’ll be able to share your success once you’ve finished.

And if you truly don’t have anyone you feel comfortable talking to about your work, then here’s an open invitation to talk to me.

5. Write for you and no one else

There are no off-limit ideas in NaNoWriMo. All genres are fair game. If you want to write a space-opera AU for your favorite shows, go for it. If you want to continue a project you’ve already started (as I will be doing), that’s cool too. The only thing that matters is that your story excites you. If it doesn’t, you’ll likely be in for a rather long and rough month.

When I write, I often slow myself down wondering whether or not some invisible audience I’ll never meet will like a story. I worry that it's too weird (or sometimes too basic) to be picked up. On bad days, I paralyze myself with the fear that my work will never be good enough, and then let that fear dictate the decisions I make. This is an incredibly bad habit I wish I could erase. It’s all fine and dandy to consider marketability if it improves your characters or tightens your plot, but there comes a point when all these considerations do is open to door to your self-saboteur. Your gut knows the story you want to tell. Let it speak unfettered, as absurd as it may be. Remind yourself that writing is a worthwhile endeavor in and of itself. Sharing what you write is something that comes after. But the writing is always for you.

GOOD LUCK!

Ultimately, the most important thing about NaNoWriMo is that you have fun. Indulge your muse. Break the rules! Even if you don’t write the full 50,000 (though I certainly hope these tips will help), you’ll still have attempted something incredible. The greatest part about NaNoWriMo is that it guides writers through one of the hardest hurdles of writing: getting started.

So go forth, writers, and write! I'll see you on the other side!