NaNoWriMo: Tips, Tricks, and Surviving November

November is one of my favorite months of the year. The weather gets just cold enough that I can stop shaving my legs, cinnamon scented things are sold everywhere, and I can finally feel accomplished in my writing abilities again. Because every November for the past five years, I've participated in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and written a 50,000 word novel in thirty days.

I started my freshman year of college, when a writer friend of mine told me about the challenge, and it has since become an essential part of my fall routine.

And now, dear friends, it can also be part of yours.

Here are my best tips and tricks to getting through November with a solid word count, a legible story, and a sense of pride in one's ability to write A Lot:

1. Find out who your characters are before November 1st.

Let them introduce themselves to you as early as July, just so you can have a handle on who they are. It's much easier to tell a story in a short amount of time if you know who you're telling it about. And your characters can be anyone! Some will show up along the way, or reveal themselves more as you write. Others will be clear from the beginning. What matters, though, is starting out with a least a basic idea who's story you're telling.

2. The story does not, by any means, have to be good.

Let's be honest, writing 50,000 words in thirty days is hard. And it guarantees that most, if not all, of those words will be garbage. And that's half the fun. If you spend all your writing time worried about how the words fit together, you'll spend your whole month rewriting the same paragraph. Let the words just happen for now, and then edit them into something pretty later. The rush is in the deadline and finding a rough first draft. Remember, you can always edit a full page, but an empty one won't ever get better.

3. The two week mark is The Worst.

Everybody who has ever done NaNoWriMo can tell you this. The two week slump is where the excitement and adrenaline powering you in the beginning has worn off and all you're left with is a vague inclination of where the plot is going and a character who needs an ending. It sucks. But power through it! Create out some possible plot lines, close your eyes and point at one, if you get really desperate. Just Keep Going. Because once you're over the hump and the story settles into a new routine, things will get easier. Probably.

4. Write every day.

My average daily word count for November is 1,666 words. That's a short college paper, and while it doesn't seem like much in the beginning, those words add up quickly (or make you fall behind quickly). In order to reach 50,000, I recommend writing at least that many words per day. And some days that will be easy. Some days you'll do twice that! Other days you'll writer 300 words and then wish for the days when writing was easier (if it was ever truly easy to begin with). But push through it. 1,666 words a day. You got this.

5. Take inspiration from wherever it comes.

This story does not have to be the Most Original Creative Thing To Ever Exist Ever. This can be an idea taken from a movie, or a poem, or a song, or even an already published book. Read books you love, listen to songs you adore, watch movies you've seen eight thousand times. Then take the things you love about them and create something similar. There's nothing wrong with following trends or crowds. Remember: this is a first draft that no one has to read if you don't want them to. You're writing for fun and for the love of writing. So don't stress about originality or searching for the perfect plot. If you find it, you find it. And if you don't, there's always a 1920's rip off of The Fault in Our Stars.

6. Most importantly, have fun.

If you aren't enjoying the writing process at least a little bit at some point during NaNoWrimo, you're doing it wrong. This isn't about stress and deadlines (okay, it is a little bit). It's about having fun and writing something you didn't know if you could. I have doubts every year, but I sit down and write anyway, because it's fun. Telling a story is fun, regardless of how terrible or wonderful it turns out. I do this, we all do this, because we love words. And that's all that matters in the end.

Keep writing, my friends.

Sam

Literary Recommendation: Rainbow Rowell's Fangirl

Movie Recommendation: Mad Max: Fury Road