To win NaNoWriMo, you must write a 50,000 word novel—from scratch—in one month (Nov. 1-30). That’s 1,667 words a day, every day, thirty days straight.
That’s a lot of words. If you’re participating in NaNoWriMo this year, how do you do it? Here are three suggestions.
How do you decide what to write? Are you investigating what the market needs by doing research and asking your followers, or you write about what deeply warms your heart? The publishing industry is tough. Writers know this; hence the boom of self-publishing. Even though satisfying your readers is significant, you need to write what you, as a writer, find so worthy of writing.
I have this friend named Mike who happens to be a great guy with one major pitfall.
Without fail, every time Mike says something which he intends to be funny he has to follow it up by explaining to his quiet, confused audience that it was actually a joke.
Note: If you have to tell your audience when to laugh, you’re not doing it right.
“My secret to writing is to never create at a keyboard,” says Thomas Steinbeck, the author and son of John Steinbeck.
You have to know something about your book before you begin to write your story. I think this is true whether you like to plot your novel before you write or not. You don’t need to know everything, but you do need to know something.
For those of you participating in NaNoWriMo, this is especially important. You don’t want to spend your first days plotting or doing characterization exercises.
Part of writing is asking for feedback. At some point you have to let go of the precious baby and let someone take a look at it. Pick someone you trust but also someone who will challenge you to do better.
