I recently talked on Twitter and Instagram about how I might not be an author today without National Novel Writing Month. It’s absolutely true, and it prompted me to revisit this old post with my favorite NaNoWriMo tips and tricks. Nothing works for everyone, but hopefully you’ll find at least one thing in this freshly updated list that helps you on your binge writing adventures. Good luck and have fun!
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The hour is nigh! It’s October 31st, which means NaNoWriMo is less than 24 hours away. Here are my favorite last-minute tips and tricks for Wrimos and speed-drafters alike:
Aim for halfway. Seriously, that 50k can feel like A LOT, but the first 25k is the uphill climb and after that you’re coasting downhill toward the finish line. Forget about 50k—commit to hitting 25,000 words in the first two weeks. It will be painful, it will suck at times, and you will hate your writing occasionally, but if you can hit 25k, you will have pushed through the worst of it!
Write your first page BEFORE November 1st. You can’t count any words written before November 1st toward your 50k goal, but getting the intimidating blank page staring contest over before the read deal starts can be a huge confidence booster! Turn some of that nervous energy you’re feeling into an opening scene. Just make a note of your wordcount before you start writing on November 1st so you can subtract it from your overall total.
Write the first sentence of each chapter. If you’re enough of a planner that you have a chapter outline, like I do, you can go one step further in conquering Blank Page Terror and write the first sentence of each chapter either before NaNo starts or on day one. This prevents me from getting stuck as I suddenly forget how to write a book all over again with each new chapter. It’s a bit laborious, but it saves me tons of time and self-doubt.
Use placeholders to keep momentum up. You should avoid stopping to research things as much as possible. Don’t know what to call that city? @CITY. Can’t come up with a name for that character? @DUDE1. Can’t remember how many bones are in the human body? @RESEARCH LATER. Can’t get over how bad a sentence sounds? @DO BETTER. Literally anything that will cause you to break your flow as you write, just throw a placeholder there and keep writing. Once you’re done with your first draft, you can use the ctrl+F (or cmd+F on a mac) feature to find every single instance of that placeholder in your doc. I always use the @ symbol, since I rarely write fiction that has lots of e-mail addresses in it, but you can use any character that doesn’t show up in your story.
Stay in the story between writing sessions. Carry a notebook around and always have those characters cooking in the back of your head while you do other things. When you sit down to write, you’ll be ready to go!
Reward yourself. Set mini goals along the way, and give yourself mini rewards! A cookie every 10k words? Video game time for each week you make your goal? Whatever motivates you!
Use 4thewords.com. Speaking of what motivates you—I am a huge proponent of 4thewords.com and have used it for years. It’s gamified writing. The basic concept is you write words to defeat monsters and progress through a story. Having to write X number of words within a certain time limit to defeat a monster really helps me stay on task and helps me get those last few extra words I might not have written otherwise. It’s free for a month, and very cheap or free after that, so try it out during NaNoWriMo! (If you sign up using my referral code, we’ll both get some free subscription time out of it: NJNRS64299)
Let your draft be rough. Real writing is rewriting. You’ll make it pretty and readable and entertaining later when you revise your novel. For now? Its only job is to exist. Make it exist.
Do you have any tips or tricks that help you survive NaNoWriMo? Post ’em below! Best of luck to all the wrimos out there. We will be victorious!
