It's time. Well, it was time at the beginning of the month, but real life got in the way. Real life is always going to get in the way, which is the first magical thing about NaNoWriMo. It is one of the rare times during the year where it is okay to be a writer. It is okay to be sitting at your computer, banging on the keyboard to get the story locked in your head out to the blank page with the blinking cursor in front of you. Let's go through the steps to feel that you're ready and what to do to actually get ready.
First Steps
1. Sign up at the NaNoWriMo website. You need to commit to what you are doing and the first step is making an account. That's it. You have until November 1st to come up with an idea and do all the world building steps.
2. Tell the people that you trust that you're going to try to write 50,000 words in a month. There are going to be questions. The one that I get the most is "why are you doing this?". There's no right or wrong answer that you give to that question. For me, it was "because I'm a writer". You might not be thinking of yourself as a writer right now and that's okay. A better answer might be "I have a story that I need to get out" or "I want to try writing" or that you have a big fanfiction project that you want to get done. The last one will get you raised eyebrows unless you have my mom, who is awesome, and said "why not fanfic" when I couldn't decide on my idea.
3. If you do not have a project in mind, brainstorm. What do you want to write? Do you want to write a memoir? Do you want to write something that is a bit like another thing you read but you think you could do it better? Do you have a project sitting somewhere that you feel needs a big rewrite or even a finish? Find that one project. After you do, go to the NaNo website and commit to that project. How you do that is go to the Novels tab in your dashboard. There will be an edit button or a declare your project button. Hit that, fill out what you feel comfortable with, and hit save. For me, I feel the most comfortable with a title and a genre. So, my novel for 2015 is Sky Pirates and fantasy genre. I might add more. I might not. Go with what you are most comfortable with.
Alright, so there are the first three steps. I am not going to say this is easy. It is not. It took me until 2008 to win a NaNoWriMo and even then I didn't think I could do it. You can do it. It is one of the scariest things that you might do in your life, but, having come out the other side, you're going to be okay. Even if you only write 1 word, you have still won. You know why? That's 1 more word than you had before the month even started. Now that we have the first steps down, let's talk about tools to help you build up your novel.
Building the Novel
1. World Building. There are so many ways to world build out there. One of my favorites is Anna Staniszewski's World Building Through Character. I usually have a really good grasp of the characters I want to write, so I will use this as world building. It helps to have it broken down into the chunks that she talks about vs completely building a new world. However, if you do need to build an entire world, the big one is Patricia C. Wrede's Fantasy World Building Questions. It seems huge and like you're never going to be done with it, but it also helps unlock the world that is in your head onto paper. Also, there's two full weeks before NaNo begins and, after you have one down, either characters or world building, the rest comes a bit easier.
2. Characters. Now, this could be your #1 instead of your #2. I know that I usually character build before world building or do a bit of both. Or I'll start world building, get an idea for the characters, and character build before finishing up world building. What I'm getting that is, no matter which way you go, you're going to have characters. What I like to do is get an idea of their personality and then use sites like Seventh Sanctum to get an idea of what they look like. I do not use word for word what they give me but use it to get a general idea of what I'm going for. There's also character sheets that you can use like Writer's Digest's Character Cheat Sheet. Or, if you're a gamer, I would recommend making a character through the character sheets that you use. Go through the dice rolling or putting points into dots and see if that helps. Anyway that you want to make your character is the right way. Like there's no wrong way to world build, there is no wrong way to character build.
3. Plot. We get to the hardest part of the novel building process. You have to decide what happens and how your characters get from point A to point Z. Or, for me, how to get from #1 to #30. I use a method that was created by erin called the Awesome OctoOctober Outline of Awesome with the following instructions being more her words than mine. What you do is open a word document or grab a piece of paper or whatever you do and number it from 1 to 30. At each one of the numbers, you put a plot point with 15 being your first climax and 25 being your secondary climax or twist. Now, you can do it a bit sooner or later, but I don't recommend going before 14 or after 16 for the first climax. Same goes for the twist not being before 24 or after 27. You can have the secondary twist a bit later, especially since then you have three chapters after it to wrap up your novel. Also, if you move the first climax up one or down one, you have to move your secondary climax / twist up or down as well. It needs to be consistent. Then, as November starts, you write the first plot point as much as you can on day one. On day two, you write the second plot point or finish up the first one and then as much as you can of the second one. You want to space it so that you are finishing your novel on the 30th or sooner so you can win NaNo. This method has not failed me ever since I started using it in 2009 but you need to stick to it. You cannot skip a day unless you plan to write two plot points the next day. It is unforgiving but, honestly, with NaNo, sometimes that is exactly what you need.
So there are the bare bones of your novel. You got your world, your characters, and your plot. You are ready for this. You are awesome. However, you're probably going "but Liz, what about the real world? I've got a job and I don't think I can do this". Or "I've go to do a million things in November!". Take a breath. Then another. You can do this, even with real life in the way. Let's talk about that next and then I'll finish up this mammoth of a post. Regular readers, or people who found this and are reading back logs, know that I am not this wordy. So, let's continue.
Real Life and NaNoWriMo
1. If you can, clean your house before NaNoWriMo starts. Or at least where you are going to spend your time writing the novel. If it's in your room, clear off your desk and get as much clutter as you can out of the way. You know why? It has been shown, through the NaNo people and others, that you will do anything to get out of writing. You will clean the house from top to bottom, possibly with a toothbrush to get out that really bad stain, and you will not write. Before November 1st, clean your damn house and/or writing space. Do it now so that you will not be distracted. This includes your fridge, your pet, and anything else that you even think will be a distraction if it's not clean.
2. Do not start any sort of diet or medication unless absolutely necessary on November 1st. I recommend at least a week to a week and a half for your body to adjust. This includes going off caffeine, going off sugar, going off of anything that you eat normally. Also, when I say medication, I mean vitamins. If your doctor says that you absolutely need to change meds on November 1st, listen to your doctor and not some random person on the internet. They know more than I do, considering they have a medical degree and I've got a Bachelors of Arts in English Lit. Also, if you plan to go on caffeine because you think it'll help you through some last night writing, do it at least a week and a half before. Same for sleep schedule and any other big changes in your life if it doesn't impact your job or your health. Otherwise, it will screw up your writing count.
3. Carve out writing time. Either in the morning, afternoon, evening, midnight - just carve out time that you are going to write. You need to make sure that you have time to write. If you know that you only have a half hour to write and you can only write 500 words, then you need to have more time on the weekend to make up writing time. Or your day off or a day where you'll only have a half day of work. Does it suck? Yes. I went through at least two NaNos where I was working retail. I would write on my lunch break and then wouldn't make it up during my off days. It didn't work. You need to make sure that you're doing make up writing time or push yourself to write more when you can. But get to your writing and get it done.
Alright, that's it. Those are the three parts of NaNoWriMo that I think you need to gear up for. Once you have those three down, you're going to be set for a month long haul of writing 50,000 words. Oh, and one more thing.
You Can Do This. It is only 1,667 words a day. You GOT This. Go be awesome.
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