Making NaNoWriMo Work For You

Have you ever had the chance to sneak away for a writing retreat? Have you had the chance to experience the synergistic feeling of creating while in close proximity to other creators? One of the best perks is that when temptation shows up, to jump on the socials or play a game on the phone “while you figure out what’s going on in the story”, a quick glance around the place silently peer pressures you back to doing what you went there to do – write.

One of the greatest perks of NaNoWriMo is that it creates a sort of collective, online recreation of a writing retreat. Logging on to the website provides the opportunity to see how well other people have been doing, and provides a little graph to show where you should be.

That said, it’s easy to get caught up in the excitement and the word counts, and the competition of the whole thing. And it’s easy to get caught up in the guilt and shame should you have a bad day (or two or ten) and get on to see how “far behind” you are. So while I am planning to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, while I have participated for many years, I always do it with a caveat: Only maintain that speed of writing a story if it is working for the story AND if it is working for the writer.

One of the keys to succeeding at this NaNo event is to consider where you are in your writing. Do you need to do a deep dive revision? Do you need to sort out the muddy middle? Do you have a beginning but then have no idea what to do next? While it is fun to make sure you are playing the game with your writing friends, just because 50k isn’t in your wheelhouse right now doesn’t mean that you can’t use the benefit of this international, month-long writing retreat to your advantage.

Take a break

It can be tempting to keep rehashing a story over and over again. Our mind tells us just one more edit, just one more revision, and it’ll be just right. But if you haven’t put the story in a proverbial drawer and left it alone for at least a month during your creative process, believe me when I say stepping back is the best thing you can do. Play with a different story, keep the writing muscles strong, and celebrate the actual act of creating. Then put your NaNo project in a drawer, pull the other one out, and see what your fresh eyes reveal.

Revise, revise, revise.

AKA NaNoReviMo. I didn’t make that up – go ahead and google it or check out the hashtag. A lot of people use the energy of this month to revise, edit, fix, clean up. While the official counter of NaNo won’t really work for this, the same concept is there. Have a daily goal, or consider your month-long goal and break it down. Five pages a day? Ten? TWENTY?!? Whatever it is, you can make a little graph or bullet journal it or create a paper chain. And get after it. Remember the caveat: Only maintain that speed of revising a story if it is working for the story AND if it is working for the writer.

Cheat (kind of)

While the purpose of NaNoWriMo is to start a new novel and get after it, 50k is 50k. If you have a start of a project, use that. If you have almost half a project, use that. Keep a note somewhere that indicates what your word count was when you started (and don’t cheat on this part) and shoot for the 50k from there. The NaNo police aren’t going to come after you just because you didn’t start a new project. Use this as the opportunity to advance your writing.

Set a Goal of your Own

This is a great way to start a habit or to have something less on your plate during winter holiday celebrations. You can NaNo all kinds of things in your writing. The key is to trust yourself as a writer (I know, imposter syndrome is a bully, but you can beat it). Want to make the goal to write 500 words every day? NaNoHabiMo (National Novel Habit Month – I think I made that one up). Make an official NaNo profile or don’t.

You get to be in charge here, you get to sort out what you need from this energy, and you know what you need. Do that.