NANOWRIMO, which is short for National Novel Writing Month, is November. The goal? Write 50,000 words in 1 month that can then be revised into a complete novel later on. Have I tried it? Twice. Have I “won” (finished)? Not yet.
I recently had a conversation on Facebook with a former classmate on this: November is not a good month for anybody in academia. I was a freshman in college when I first learned about NANOWRIMO, and even then, with the lightest workload I would have over those four years, I frequently had to skip days of writing my novel in order to get my homework done. I lasted about a week and a half into the challenge the first time I tried it. The second time, further into my college career, I only survived about a week. College professors, many of whom are writers themselves, probably have a hard time doing this challenge too, since they too take their work home with them, between preparing to teach and grading assignments.
College is over now, though. I’m going to do it. I’m currently job searching and not tied down by major time commitments, so I’ve never been in a better situation to make this happen.
I’m trying to figure out if there’s anything I can do to prepare for the writing marathon to come. I should definitely have a premise and some characters in mind before I begin, but how much more should I do? Should I be outlining? If the story involves research, I should probably start looking now for useful sources I can turn to as needed.
Anyone else looking to give NANOWRIMO a try? Have you reached 50,000 words? I’m open to advice. Feel free to leave a comment.
The Fountain Pen Blog 
I have never done NANOWRIMO, but I am currently rewriting my WIP because I ran into some serious issues with my story structure. Took me a couple days, but I think I have a much stronger outline for my story, so if I could give any writer one piece of advice on story writing it would be to map out a structure for yourself. Will save you a lot of headache and time lol Good luck with your writing! Take care 🙂
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Good luck with your WIP! I’m definitely considering an outline. I tend to write shorter works so I’m not used to having to outline and I worry that it might suck some of the fun of inventing as I go. Then again, an outline might allow for a more intricate narrative in the long run. Thanks for the advice 🙂
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Honestly, unless you’re a tried-and-true pantser, get as much planning as you can done before November starts. Research, yes. You are not going to want to waste time during the month to look stuff up. But more than that, I’d strongly suggest as much of an outline as you can. Some people worry about tiring themselves creatively by doing *too* much planning, so if that’s a concern, maybe don’t go too crazy. But in the years I’ve done NaNo (5), I’ve learned that the more planning I can have done, the more words I can write. But more than that, the month goes more smoothly as a whole when I have a plan.
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Thanks for your advice. This is good to know. I can do a lot on the seat of my pants but I seriously doubt I can manage 50,000 words without significant prep work. I guess it’s a matter of finding that sweet spot where I haven’t planned it to death but I’m also not writing aimlessly.
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Don’t ever assume that planning a story beforehand means all hope for creativity in the writing is gone. For one thing, outlining IS creative. Writing an outline is creating a plot as you go, just doing it before the actual writing begins so you can fix plot holes or make it more complex before spending a lot of time writing. Also, most of us planners don’t hold ourselves strictly to the outline any more than a panster would want to do. I have written numerous long and short stories where, at the end, I could look back at the outline and see how far off of it I ended up. During the actual writing, if a character or plot point takes me away from the outline, I usually follow it.
One more thing I want to say, though, so you have some idea where I’m coming from: My last 2 NaNos were the most prepared I’ve ever been. They were sort of rewrites (same basic story skeleton, but otherwise new material) and for both, I had pretty solid outlines. I wrote around 100k both years, and I know it’s because I had such a firm idea of where I was going. Sorry if I sound a little ranty. I often feel like outlining has gotten a bad rap. Obviously you should do as much or little pre-planning as you’re comfortable with.
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I totally get it. I’m coming from the experience of mostly writing shorter works so for me the idea of outlining often seems like overkill, but for a longer work I imagine it can get to be absolutely necessary just to keep everything organized.
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