NaNoWriMo Season Begins!

As we all slept off our sugar hype from last night, something snuck up on us in the night, and no, it wasn't the fallback from Daylight Savings Time.

No, from the moment the clock struck 12:00 AM, November 1st, writers all across the country started on the challenge known as National Novel Writing Month, including yours truly.

Commonly called NaNoWriMo, it's a month full of writing goals and months beforehand of preparation. To all of my friends: I apologize if I don't talk to you at all this month. I'll make up for it Christmas, I swear.

This is my first time doing NaNo, I'm pretty excited/nervous/oh god what have I done. NaNo gave me some great writing advice: Sometimes it's necessary to turn your inner editor off (or imprison them in a concrete cell with water and biscuits) and just write, because the story is what you're really chasing for one focused month. I know this is what I need, as well as what some of my friends need.

So I encourage you to participate in NaNo next year--you've got plenty of time to start cooking up ideas and exploring them before actually writing them down on a blank Word document in your computer's universe. But for the people actually writing and reading this blog (FINISH THE POST THEN GET BACK TO WORK), here are a few NaNo tips:

1) GOALS

These, I find, are some of the most important parts of writing. My word goal today, a little higher than the NaNo standard, was 2,000 words minimum. It's not a 5k, or a 15k, which would certainly kill me. It's attainable with a little bit of effort. That's the key. And don't forget to log your words on the NaNo website--they've got some awesome graphs to track your progress throughout the month <3 that's the way to my heart, for sure!

But GOALS has a second part: REWARDS. I watched a vlog post (link at bottom of the post) from author Victoria Schwab (check out her insanely amazing stuff) about her calendar system, which works as a visual reward system. She has a desk calendar and for every x amount of words, she puts a color-coded sticker on the day and keeps going. I'm trying this (s/o to sparkly star stickers) and loving it, not just for the RAINBOW SPARKLES but the feeling of rewarding myself with a sticker. Like high-fiving myself.

2) PLANNER VS. PANTSER

We all have a unique writing process. Some people plan out every little plot detail, having everything planned to the nth degree. These people are known as "Planners," to different extremes of course. Their prewriting stage can last for a while, or they'll plan everything out in one highly focused laser beam day/hour/second.

Then, there are those who sit down and write whatever, feeling their way through their story blind. It's a constant adventure for them, full of discovery and wonderful twists and turns. These people are called "Pantsers" after the saying "flying by the seat of your pants." Their prewriting stage may not happen at all; I think it happens along the way, like the gray load bar racing ahead of the read "have watched" bar on YouTube videos.

It seems so cut and dry, carefully laid out. You're a Planner or you're a Pantser. I disagree.

There's a third category, according to Victoria Schwab (Her Royal Majesty), called the "Connect-the-Dotsers." These people plan a bit, laying down a structure with Point A and a Point B but any number of points along the way: A.1, A.2, A.67, etc. They've got a destination but are carving their own routes. I'd say I'm a Connect-the-Dotser, swinging from Planner one day to more of a Pantser the next. And like I said: everyone's process is different.

3) EYES ON YOUR OWN PAPER

I heard this on Twitter from numerous authors: keep your eyes on your own paper. Don't compare your first (and VERY STUBBLY ROUGH) draft to someone else's final (WELL-TRIMMED BEARD) draft. It will do you no good, and your inner writer will feel self-conscious and full of doubt.

Don't do that to yourself--your writing is something special and totally brand new, like your DNA. DNA,while a combination of your parental units' genes, arranges you in a way that doesn't make you an exact copy of Parent 1 or Parent 2. Something new. Something you.

I struggle with this--some part of my mind is always whispering poison in my ear, saying "Neil Gaiman could've done it better" or "Do you even deserve to be in the same room as Holly Black with this mess of words on your document?" NaNo is the time to shut this voice up and take some time for you and only you. As for me, I'm locking up my books for a bit; while I love to read, the temptation to compare is right there, and goodnesss knows I'm a sucker for books. It's not healthy for me, or my writing, to constantly compare and ultimately end up thinking I suck and should never write again.

4) TURN OFF YOUR INNER EDITOR

More solid NaNo advice from NaNoWriMo themselves. Imagine your inner editor. Maybe they're a person, an object, a purple-spotted alien from Saturn sent to torment your grammar with its impeccable grasp of the English language.

Now imagine it locked away/on vacation/back on Saturn, light-years away. That's where they'll remain for all of NaNo, letting Writer You out of the box and onto the page. Be free.

(It's a little ironic that my inner editor is the spelling/grammar check/squiggly lines on Word and that I shut it down like a computer yet write almost entirely in Word.)

5) ENJOY YOURSELF

This month is entirely about you, your writing, and what you feel like accomplishing. It's a challenge, a dream, and a reality. It's an attainable goal that's still hard enough to make you want to go the extra fifty miles and get to that place where everything feels "write." Remember to take care of yourself: writing is important but so is physical health. Get up and stretch, take a breather, then dive right back in. Eat healthily (my personal challenge--writing often activates my sweet tooth) and exercise to relieve some of the stress of NaNo.

Don't bite off more than you can chew. If you've got a 3-page English essay due the next day and haven't hit your word count and are acutely aware of the dishes piling up in the sink and starting to smell, then it's time to step back and prioritize. Perhaps this means you'll have to make up the NaNo distance the next day so you can finish the English essay and finally take care of those dishes. If you've got enough to chew, chew it well, swallow, and take another bite.

That's all for my NaNo spiel today--I'm going to take a knitting break, get some sleep, and do this all again tomorrow. I might be posting a bit on the weekends, though I can't promise anything; NaNo is fun but eats time like I eat candy.

Good luck to all my fellow NaNos! We can do this!