Is it important to have daily word goals? Or is better to have weekly goals since life can bring so much up? If you get on a roll one day do you forget the goal and just keep on going? I really want to do my Lollards story during this, but I'm not sure I can hit the daily goal with all the research I might need to do. Do people choose simple plots to do during this so that it is easier to write? So who is doing this, and what is the best thing to do?
I think while continuously writing is important a word count isn't. Writing for the sake of writing can result in drivel. Strive for quality and include research time as well spent so long as you stay submerged in your story.
Write, just write. Don't look back. Don't edit. 1,667 words per day. 30 days. Pants it or plan it, doesn't matter, just get it done.
What you want to avoid is not writing for several days; if you get 1,000 words behind, finding an extra hour to catch up isn't that bad. If you get 10,000 words behind, you'll probably quit.
While I agree that you shouldn't fall behind in your writing, falling behind by 10,000 words is only an issue if you stress about meeting word limits and catching up if you miss a day. I'm not saying people don't need goals just that stressing about meeting goals can put people off. Personally I'd be far more inclined to give up on something if I had 43,000 words of which 80% needed to be cut than 20,000 words I was happy with.
That's like saying you must produce a certain number of paintings per week/month to be an artist. If you avoid actually sitting down to write you certainly won't get anywhere much. But as long as you're crafting your actual story, play, poem, whatever, I'd say don't stress over how fast you're producing words. This only matters if you're a professional, under contract to produce words at a prescribed pace. I've always felt sorry for published novelists whose contract requires another novel within a relatively short space of time. If it took them 6 years to write the first one they sold, they may struggle to produce one of similar quality every year after that! They may agree to such a deal, in their first flush of published success, but I bet they regret it later on. I can't think of anything worse, from an author's point of view, than knowing you only produced one really great book in your life, and all the subsequent ones have been churned out to meet a deadline. I'd say write at your own pace, whatever that is. Enjoy the process.
As a NaNoWriMo failure=success story, for me what mattered was having something to write. People who've heard the next paragraph a dozen times, my apologies. After 2 false starts I began almost three weeks into November. Then I started with a story idea that worked. I had 45K words at the end of November so I didn't make the challenge. But I kept going, finished a solid draft of a duology before the end of the year and I've been happily working on book one for two years now. I call that a success. I may not have written the draft if it weren't for that little push of NaNoWriMo, I don't know. For me, the motivation and a story were more important than slogging out a daily word count. When I got going, I just wrote and wrote. But for people who have been writing a while, I think the discipline of that daily word count might get them past a slump, and for people whose heads are filled with stories, the challenge might get one of those stories out that would have otherwise taken much longer to emerge.
Yes, except if that 80% were a completed rough draft that needed to then be turned into a completed book. There is a lot of stuff in my first draft I've changed, but it laid the story out nonetheless.
I contribute to a recently-started writer's blog set up between a few friends, and today I decided to write about NaNoWriMo for those who don't know what it is, and what opportunities it can present. I would appreciate it if you read my thoughts here: (http://wemightbewriters.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/nanowrimo-national-novel-writing-month.html) But I would also like to ask you all what you think of NaNoWriMo, just as a concept, because I've heard some say it's fantastic and I've heard others say it's terrible. What are your opinions, are you getting involved, have you been involved in a previous year, what were your experiences there? Happy writing!
My understanding is that, yes, it's alright to have a plan, including outlines, title, character sheets, etc. as long as you don't start work on the actual writing until midnight Nov. 1st. I've never done it before this year, but the NaNoWriMo site allows you to add info for your project in October so....
Hi Ubrechor. I am doing the nano thing for the first time this year. While I like the community aspect, such as local groups who can meet to talk, discuss problems, socialise, etc, I also like the arbitrary nature of the word limit and deadline. What I do not like is that the novels are not actually read by anyone. There is no review process. I would prefer it if a panel somehow judged the entries. Well, just the 'winners' obviously. It would be a herculean task, I am sure. But without peer review, how useful is it?
Yeah, me too. It has really helped focus me into providing some story ideas, making notes, describing the properties of my universe, plot, pacing, etc. I really intend to go all in when November 1st rolls around.
This sounds like a fine idea, but it's not for me. It's a bit like Weight-Watchers, isn't it? Some folks enjoy the incentive and support of others who share the same goals at the same time. Others aren't inspired by whether somebody else is 'doing it' with them or not, and would rather do things their own way at their own pace. I'm afraid I'm a bit of a lone wolf, myself. I'm also verbose as hell, and have NO PROBLEM churning out 50,000 words in one month. Problem is, I then end up chucking 2/3 of them later on. But good luck to all of you. Seize incentive wherever it comes from and enjoy your writing month.
I like the idea of it, but it doesn't really work for me. I find it really hard to shut up my inner editor. Last year I did one 100-word story every day instead to try and get into the spirit in a way that suited me better - that's what kicked the blog off. I haven't decided yet if I'll try and do the same this year or stick to the current M-W-F schedule.
I'm very much the same as you and probably won't bother much with the forums and camaraderie of it all. The first novel I published was written in under a month and I average 9k a day on the three novels I'm currently working on. What I'm hoping for instead is some focus. To get back to not splitting my focus so much so that I can be more productive overall. If that makes sense at all. I don't know that adding a 4th project is my best idea, but since I only have a month to do it I'm going to need to give it some amount of exclusivity. The hope being that when I'm done with it, I can manage to focus entirely on one at a time, finishing them more quickly. Possibly a ginormous epic fail in my future, but whatever. It's worth a shot, lol.
I'm like both of you. Recently wrote a 66K novel in less than a month, words are no problem, I might even write better when I don't feel any pressure of doing so though. But I like the thought of nanowrimo, so I'm going to give it another try, despite that. Problem is I'm usually a little slower the first few days of a new project before arriving at writing 3 or 4K each day. But those days are quite stressful with nano because it's so obvious that you are behind in the schedule, which isn't so nice. and the stress can give me some kind of writers block.
I tend to agree with jannert - I am usually better working on projects on my own. However, I'm going to give NaNoWriMo a shot this year because I think the aspect of committing to writing with a deadline will still push me there. Plus there's the aspect of thousands of other writers all writing a novel in a month, which I hope will be a source of motivation.
My first problem with nanowrimo is the utterly ridiculous name. It sounds like a Pokemon. My second problem is with its ideology. Writing month? Shouldn't we be writing all year Round?Why associate myself with a crowd attitude that says "this is it. This month I'm going to sit down and do it"? I'm already doing that, every month.
I agree, a writer probably writes every month. But I still think it's fun to burst out in extreme writing one month a year and just write with the inner critic shut off. But of course I write all the other months too. I might just give myself a little more time to finish that first draft!
NaNoWriMo is also geared towards people who have always thought about writing a novel but haven't as yet, which is why there is a "writing month".
NaNoWriMo is a month dedicated to writing. If you are one of the blessed few who can dedicate every hour, minute, and second of your life to writing, every day, without fail, I commend you and can say, with absolute surety, that NaNoWriMo isn't for you. It is designed for people who can't do that. It is designed as a special time where people who are normally too busy, too distracted or too creatively-frustrated can say "F*** the world, I'm gonna write, and don't bother me 'til Dec 1st." It is for people who, if they did this every day of the year, would lose husbands, wives, children, jobs, or their mind. If all of this sounds like melodrama to you or if you're sitting there, reading this, and thinking, "meh, I don't see what the big deal is" or "it's just 50k words, I do that in a day," then it's clearly not for you. To borrow the Weight Watchers metaphor, you're a fit person; of course the program makes no sense to you. And there's nothing wrong with that. I'm just trying to put it into perspective.
