Great, just great. I can't wait to start writing my book at a word count that's only about thirteen hundred words. No, I'm not going to do the math for how many words a day I have to do in order to reach the impossible peak of fifty thousand words. Not to mention that most books are way longer than that staggering word count and I haven't even begun to reach a fifth of that.
Oh, and here's the best part, I don't care.
That is, I don't care about that now that I'm done feeling sorry for myself. The fact remains that I need to write this book in basically twelve days. It's not that I can't space out this time among the rest of this year or maybe just plan better next time around. Don't worry, there's no evil genius with a gun to my head demanding that I write this book. There are no bills that are desperately waiting to be paid unless I get a book published this instant. Nation Novel Writing Month isn't about that. At its core, it's about having the willpower to try. That's it. There's not even a reason to cheat since all you'll win is a certificate. You could cheat in order to grandstand, but its the effort you put into it that makes NaNoWriMo something that has become something of a tradition.
So from here on out I'm going to type up a blog post every damn day to explain how well I'm doing, my story, characters, and when my inner editor begs me to change something instead of writing like how I'm supposed to.
Since this is my first post on the matter, how about I give you a few tips that I should've followed in the first place? Sound good? Yeah, I know, it's genius.
START ON TIME!
Yes, it's the most obvious one and also the most important. Writers have a tendency to put off writing, even when for most, if not all of us, it's our dream job. Toss aside the research, editing and any outside influence, and just writing isn't that hard, so we have a tendency to do so when it suits us. The problem only really seems t present itself when you keep pushing the start date further and further back. There are so many stories out there that we may never get to read because they didn't sit down in front of the screen and fill it with words.
Best case scenario has you sitting in front of your computer with a scarf draped around your neck, tea and a crumpet (never had one) at your side while in a deep writing trance that takes you to the end of your word count and beyond to literary stardom. In this scenario you also have an agent, a mansion and you're also the reincarnation of Jesus Christ. You aren't. Stop it. If you can do you word count in one sitting, that's great. I usually set my own word count over three or four sessions with my final one usually going over. Break the problem down until you can see how to solve it.
Hmm, maybe I should be writing instead of telling you guys to do so... nope.
Jot other Story Ideas down and move on
I hope I'm alone in this, but this is a big one for me. I'm a scatter brain. When I think of one thing, ten more sprout from it, pushing me to use this idea here and there while simultaneously thinking up ways to make another book. I don't want to stop that. It's why I know I want to be a writer. I manage my imagination by letting it out on another sheet of paper or in the worst/best case scenarios I make up a story on the side and quickly put ti away for later. There's nothing worse to me than coming up with any element of a story and then forgetting it. You can even make a little outline for it. Not the in depth play by play that tells you how many periods will go in your paragraph, but the kind that gives suggestions for later use.
I usually use dashes to indicate when I want something else in added in.
Chapter 1: Jake finds his father's knife wrapped in his death mother's hands.
-knife is reminiscent of a bird's wing or fish's head
-Mother's face was at peace
-Father was watching from beneath the floor boards the entire time.
See, little things like that can be added in later after the story is done without slowing you down. Personally, I struggle with changing a story after I'm done writing it. I've written it, plotted it, filled it with characters and that's that. I should be done with it. Little did I know that writing comes in layers. As you do one thing, you check them all. Change one and you have to make sure the story runs smooth because of it. With a few reminders I make sure to keep it my story stable.
It's only the first draft
The first time I completed NaNoWriMo I was so proud of myself until I realized that I turned off the spell check because those jagged red lines get a bit distracting at times. I turned them on and I swear to all gods that every other line was filled with mistakes, baiting me to rage quit out of my dream job. I didn't complete the second NaNo the following the year because I was too worried about my grammar. Honestly, I'm now able to ignore it up to a point. Instead of holding back until NaNo is over, I check over everything at the end of the day to make sure that the main idea is coming across. Remember, you only do this to the point that the main idea is coming across--being conveyed so that it won't confuse you or your future readers.
The best thing about it, is that grammar wise, I only care about it when I'm writing for pleasure. When it's for school or for work, I could hardly care. I have a bad habit of wanting perfection for my writing because--to be being frank--I care more. Writing is what I want to do. It has a special place somewhere deep down in my psyche that says if I want my writing to matter, then it has to be perfect.
Well, now that I've talked about writing, maybe I should go do some?
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