NaNoWriMo: How to Write a Novel in a Month€¦ · NaNoWriMo started in 1999 with 21 people taking part, and it’s grown year on year. In 2014, over 325,000 people took part all

Writers’ Huddle: NaNoWriMo: How to Write a Novel in a Month October 2015

© Ali Luke, 2015 www.writershuddle.com P a g e | 1

NaNoWriMo: How to Write a Novel in a Month

This is a transcript of the seminar, edited slightly for easy reading. You can find the audio

version and worksheet at www.writershuddle.com/seminars/oct2015.

Hi, I’m Ali Luke, and this is the October seminar for Writers’ Huddle: How to

Write a Novel in a Month.

If you’ve not heard of it before, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing

Month, and it pretty much does what it says on the tin. The idea is that you

write a novel in a month. It’s actually international now – I think the “national”

was from the early beginnings of it.

NaNoWriMo started in 1999 with 21 people taking part, and it’s grown year on

year. In 2014, over 325,000 people took part all across the world.

So it’s an exciting worldwide writing event, and chances are, if you’re in any

writers’ groups or communities – including Writers’ Huddle! – you’ll know

people who’ll be taking part or who have taken part.

A bit later in this seminar, we’ll be hearing from three members of Writers’

Huddle about their experiences of NaNoWriMo and their tips, if you’re maybe

doing this for the first time or if you’re struggling to see the success with it that

you’d like to see.

It’s an exciting challenge. Writing a novel in a month is no walk in the park – it’s

a big undertaking – but it’s one month of your life. You’re not committing to

doing this for a whole year or for two years or something.

It works out to 1,667 words per day, if you write every day (as there’s 30 days

in November). That’s quite a bit of writing. For me personally, if I can get 1,000

words of fiction in an hour, I’m happy – so I guess for me, that would mean

writing for between an hour and a half and two hours every day.

How realistic that is depends a little bit on your lifestyle and your

commitments. For me a few years ago, that was easy-peasy – for me these

http://www.writershuddle.com/seminars/oct2015



days with two small children and working part-time on my paid work, it’s more

of a struggle.

So this is not something that’s necessarily right for everyone. But if you’re

considering it, if you just want to know a bit more, or if you’re thinking of

taking part by doing something a bit different – maybe less than 50,000 words,

maybe doing it across a couple of months or whatever might work for you –

then keep listening, and hopefully you’ll pick up some useful tips.

Who is NaNoWriMo For?

When I was looking into the history of NaNo a bit for this seminar, I found out

that one of the novels I really enjoyed in the last couple of years, The Night

Circus by Erin Morgenstern, was a NaNo novel. I think she wrote it across the

course of two NaNoWriMos. That was one I used last month as one of the

examples in our Descriptions seminar.

The Night Circus is brilliant and I guess it would maybe not even exist if it

wasn’t for NaNo and Erin having the chance to write it during that. So that’s

pretty cool! You don’t know where the novel you write might end up.

This is not something that’s just done by new writers or amateur writers. This

is something that professional writers do, or people who go on and become

professional writers. Literary writers can do this; commercial genre writers can

do this. NaNo is very egalitarian in that way. You can take part whatever stage

you’re at with your writing.

I’m not going to say anything more at this stage – I’m just going to jump into

the interviews with three members of Writers’ Huddle. I’ve got Dana and

Frances and Corianne talking about their experiences and how they got on

with NaNo, what they would recommend to other Huddlers who might be

thinking about taking the plunge.



Dana’s NaNo Experience and Tips

Ali: Hey, Dana, it's really great to be chatting to you, and thanks so much for

coming and doing this. Hello to everybody in Writers' Huddle! I've got Dana

here as our first Nano participant who's just going to be sharing her

experiences with us a bit, and hopefully giving us a few tips and lessons

learned and so on.

Dana’s History with NaNoWriMo

I wanted to get started by asking you how many times have you taken part in

NaNoWriMo, and how did it go?

Dana: I tried two different times. The first one, I was doing pretty decently

until my character threw a hissy fit and stormed off and I had no idea how to

bring him back. The second attempt, I got about a chapter in and realised I had

a well in-depth character but absolutely no plot - so that didn't go as well.

Ali: Yeah, sometimes it's good when characters take the reins, but sometimes

that's quite unhelpful with the strong-willed ones.

Dana: I'm like, “Wait! I need you for the rest of the story! Come back!”

Dana’s Tips for First Time NaNo-ers

Ali: What tips would you have, then, for people who are just maybe doing this

for the first time? They’re going into NaNoWriMo – what should they be doing

and not doing?

Dana: Well, first and foremost, focus on the fact that it is for fun. It is

completely and utterly for failing miserably, just for the enjoyment of it, to get

that story out of your head finally, to have something to talk to other people

with, to get that [ten] thousand hours of practice that a lot of professionals

discuss.

Don't take yourself too seriously with it. And then other than that, just plot

ahead of time, even if it's just a brief thing on Day One or even if you cheat and

do it on October 31st, just go in with a game plan – because like I said, the

second time I failed miserably because I realised I had absolutely no plot.



[Ali’s note: Planning ahead of time is actually allowed under the rules – you’re

just not supposed to start the actual writing.]

Ali: Yeah, sometimes you can just launch in there and get a certain distance – I

know I find that – and you get two chapters in and then, “Oh, where do I go

now?”

What Would Dana Do Differently Next Time?

Ali (cont): So I guess that slightly answers my next question, which is ... what

would you do differently another time?

Dana: Definitely try to have something properly plotted out, so that I knew

where I was going ahead of time. Then I'm not just sitting there pounding my

head against the wall, going “Oh my gosh, I'm about 5000 words behind, how

do I catch up?” and spending all my time figuring out where to go instead of

actually writing.

Ali: For you, is there an optimum level of plotting? Do you feel you just need a

list of key points that you're going to hit within the novel and a sense of the

ending, or something, or do you want a really detailed synopsis?

What do you feel for you would be the right amount?

Dana: Well, I personally have a theory on writers, that there are two generic

types.

You have what I like to consider the “director” types, who have the entire

script plotted out, they know exactly what's going on, and their characters

are just actors. They direct them which way to go, and it works beautifully. My

one friend does it, and it baffles me.

I'm more what I like to call the “medium”, in which I channel the characters,

and I virtually have no story aside from broad strokes of “OK, this is the basic

story arc,” and then I put my characters in play and go “All right, tell me how

your story goes, I'll just get it down, yeah?” And that's probably what went

wrong in the first story that I did, in which he just had a little hissy fit and I'm

like “I don't even know any more.”

Ali: It’s one of those things where I guess you're accessing the subconscious

mind, and sometimes that works, sometimes you've got the story there and



you just have to access it a bit, and then sometimes it doesn’t work. Maybe the

story was never a full novel anyway.

I know I've had ideas that I thought would be a novel or I thought would be a

short story and they ended up being just vastly different lengths, and I think

unless you do at least some level of planning, it's just hard to see, “Will this

idea even pan out?” So with NaNoWriMo it's 50,000 words, which is a

relatively short novel, but it's still a heck of a lot of writing.

Dana: Yeah, basically it's just trying to figure out what works best for you.

Another fun thing about NaNo is the fact that you can use it to test the

waters a little bit and figure out what does work best for you.

Is it best to do the daily writing like it suggests? Is it better to just pound out a

quarter of the story every weekend? Whatever works best for you.

Same when it comes to the amount of plotting that you need to do: is it easier

to just do broad strokes of, “OK, I know my characters and I know the basic

concept of the story, let's put 'em into play,” or do you need it to be really

plotted out specifically, like “All right, this person is going to be here at this

point in time and they're going to do this thing, and that's how the entire

chapter's going to go down?

So it depends on the person, and NaNo is actually a really great time to figure

that out, to test the waters.

Ali: I agree, I think it's a really good tool for pushing yourself as a writer, and

for being able to try things. It's only a month, so you can try something and

then if it doesn't pan out, it's not like you lost three years of your life to it.

Dana’s Post-NaNo Experience

Ali (cont): That leads me on to the final thing I wanted to ask you, which is

whether the effects of doing NaNoWriMo lasted. So it sounds like it was a

fruitful time for you, that you learned something about your process and you

maybe took that forward in your writing as a whole?

Dana: Doing both NaNos really led me towards really getting back into the

passion of writing, and then from there led me to joining writing communities,

and led me to seminars and webinars on writing, that sort of thing.



That really got me to find myself as a writer, find my voice, figure out my

most opportune time of writing, the best spot to write, the whole thing. It's

still a learning process, but yeah, I definitely learned at least a little bit. At least

sparks, with NaNo.

If you backtrack a little further, NaNo had a sister project called Script Frenzy

which is what I actually started with and which is a hundred-page script in

thirty days instead of a 50,000 novel. And roughly about the same amount of

wordage. But that's where I started because I graduated in production. And

then that transitioned me in to NaNo, and then that transitioned me into being

a fairly steady writer, now.

Ali: That's really good and really encouraging for people like me, and probably

quite a few of the Huddlers listening, who maybe tried it and failed to get the

50,000 words.

There's a huge amount you can get from the experience of even trying

NaNoWriMo. It doesn't really matter, almost, whether you do hit 50,000 words

or even 20,000 words or 10,000 words - the experience of doing it can lead to

some real benefits in your writing life and in your writing.

Dana: Yeah, another fun thing is communicating with other writers. A lot of

NaNos have regional connections, and then breaks it down into more and

more neighbourhood-like territories, and just finding other people in your area

and going to those write-ins.

Even if you don't go to the write-ins, use them as a connection point to find

like-minded writers in your area. And even if you go out and just have a pizza

with them one day and chat about your stories, that's another really big thing

for me.

The more I talk about my story and the more other people talk about theirs

to me, the more excited we all become and the more motivated we are to sit

down and write the next chapter, because we are so excited about talking

about it to people that we want them to actually read what is in our head.

And so finding those people when you connect to them via NaNo – even if it's

online using the forums and whatnot – it really, really helps to inspire. At least

I've found that it does.



Ali: That's so true, though. I think just being around other writers is

encouraging in itself. Being around people who get what it is to be a writer.

Some people are lucky enough maybe that they've got a spouse or a friend or a

family member or somebody who's really supportive. My husband, although

he's not really a fiction writer himself, he has done NaNoWriMo alongside me

and he's really encouraging of my writing.

But some people don't have that, and then being amongst a community of

writers is really crucial. But just generally – it's good fun, it's nice to meet with

other writers.

I've never done the meeting up with NaNo people myself, but I've got a friend

who did that quite a lot and made some really good, lasting writing friendships

through that.

Dana: Yeah, and you never know who you can set up as a year-round local

writing community, to help beyond November. When November ends, then

you guys want to go back through and polish up your stories, or start from

scratch and do something a little more serious, you have a writing group to

help you push you forward in the same way that you had that drive during

NaNo.

Having that writing community there really helps, and being able to connect

with them again even if it's online then holding on to those relationships year-

round will really keep you motivated to keep writing.

Ali: I agree. So yeah, if you’re listening to this and just thinking about dipping

your toes in, do look and see if there's a local group to you, because there are

loads all around the world.

If you've never belonged to a writing group or anything before, a NaNo group

is probably quite a good way in because you'll find there are lots of people who

are just doing this crazy thing for the first time, and people are very open to

having others along for the ride.

Plus it's only a month, so if you discover that you don't get on with these

people you can probably just tactfully take your leave at the end of

NaNoWriMo and then you're done with it. But hopefully, you know, as you

found, as a lot of people I'm sure have found, it's a really encouraging way to



just be with other writers and to have that all year round, not just for

November.

I think we'll wrap up there. I hope this has been encouraging to everyone

listening, and thanks so much, Dana, for coming along and telling us about

your experiences of NaNo. Are you going to be doing it again this year?

Dana: I think I'm going to be doing my own version of NaNo, which involves

crocheting a crap-ton of Christmas gifts so I'm probably going to have to bow

out this time. But I'm definitely going to try next year, for sure.

Ali: Awesome.

#2: Frances’ NaNoWriMo Experiences and Tips

Ali: So our second speaker on the NaNoWriMo seminar is Frances. So thanks so

much, Frances, for being with us today. It's great to have you here.

Frances’ History with NaNoWriMo

Ali (cont): Can we just start by asking you how many times have you taken part

in NaNoWriMo and how did it go for you?

Frances: I've done six NaNos now, so I'm going into my seventh this year. And

I've always passed the 50,000 mark, so that's been good, and this year I'll cross

over the half a million words written during NaNo.

Ali: That's amazing, wow – well done.

Frances: Yeah, that was a surprise to me when I looked it up a while ago.

Ali: I've done about three NaNos and I won it once. That's brilliant.

Frances’ Tips for First Time NaNo-ers

Ali (cont): What tips, then, do you have for people who are maybe just starting

their very first NaNo? What would you recommend?

Frances: I think because of the format of NaNo, where you're writing quite fast

or faster than most people normally write, every day, it lends itself to letting



go, in a way, being freer and letting yourself write things that perhaps you

would worry about other times.

That would be my tip, not worry about it too much, just get words written,

and that lends itself to the words getting better.

On a practical level I'd say write every day, because once you skip a few days

and start falling behind, it gets hard to catch back up again, and you start to

lose a bit of motivation then.

So I would say, yeah, enjoy yourself, let go of it, and just write every day.

Ali: I think that's a great way to get through NaNoWriMo, because yeah, if you

skip a day then there's just that much more to catch up with.

Frances: Yeah, it starts building up really quick.

Ali: I think there's something motivating about having a whole chain of days

when you've been writing, even if it's not specifically for NaNo. Just a whole

chain of, “I wrote every day even just for maybe five minutes.”

Frances: Yeah, definitely. And NaNo has really fun little graphs and word

counters and stuff. That helps me – that makes me feel like I'm competing

against myself, and yeah, to see that little graph going up every day, and it's

got a little line showing you where you should be, and you can see where it is.

That's quite motivating for me, and it feels like quite an achievement then.

Ali: That's really encouraging, yeah. Do you find that you tend to finish before

the end of the month? Do you actually beat the thirty days or are you finishing

right on the last day?

Frances: Once I was finishing right on the last day, one time I had to write quite

a lot, and the last three days were a bit manic, but all the other times, I've got

to the end before and gone over, sometimes.

It depends how you want to look at it. I see it not so much as writing 50,000

words but writing for a month, and so sometimes that means I'm writing

more.

Ali: That's brilliant. Is there anything that you'd do differently this year, or in

the future? It sounds like what you're doing is working brilliantly.



What Would Frances Do Differently Next Time?

Frances: This year my plan has been a bit different, as in I've actually got a

plan. And it's quite specifically catered to NaNo, which is that I've got thirty

chunks, so each day is a different point ticked off on my plan.

When I had this idea, that is my character following a list of thirty things to do,

I thought, I'm saving that for NaNo because that's just perfect.

Ali: That sounds ideal! I think I've seen people do a NaNo novel where they

have thirty days in the life of the character as well as the thirty days they write,

and so on. I think that's probably quite a good structure when you know you've

got to fit it into that kind of writing time.

Frances: Yeah, when you're writing fast like that, you don't want to be

spending time wondering about what you're going to write that day. You don't

want to run out of ideas, which I've done before, and had to start something

different partway through.

Ali: Yeah, Dana, who was the first speaker on this seminar said she's had that

problem, I think I too have had that problem. You launch into it and you're

excited and thenyour character goes off in the wrong direction and then you're

lost.

Frances: Yeah, or you can start too fast and peak quite early. I've done that

before – by about day 9 I felt like I'd written everything that I needed to, or

wanted to write. I've just done it too quickly.

Frances’ Post-NaNo Experiences

Ali: It's definitely a marathon, not a sprint. So did the effects of doing

NaNoWriMo last beyond November? Did that feeling of “I've written every day

in November” carry on to the next few months or the next year for you?

Frances: Yeah, definitely. My first NaNo I did was really the first time that I'd

done much writing for years and years, so that kickstarted me back into writing

again after quite a long time of not writing.

Last year, after I finished in November, I carried on writing every day until

March or April, maybe, so the streak just carried on quite naturally. So in terms

of writing it definitely does. I can ride that for quite a while.



Also in non-NaNo pursuits, just in writing in general, I've learned a lot about

how I write and how I plot, and how I keep myself motivated, what timescales

to do things on, sprints and things like that.

And just in general in life, if you feel that you can write a novel in a month

you feel like you can do quite a lot of different things. So it opens you up to

other challenges.

Ali: I think you're completely right, when you push yourself and you see that

you can do it, you realise that a lot is possible.

Frances: Yeah, something insurmountable as writing a novel, when you break

it down day by day and just chip away at it you can do that. So there must be

other things that you can do if you just keep working at them every day.

Ali: In terms of the material you produced, did you edit and rework and revise,

did you just move on from what you'd written on to something new – what

happened to your NaNo novels?

Frances: Some of them just sat underneath the settee gathering dust once

they'd been printed out, but I feel like they're rough drafts that I could come

back to if I wanted to, if I was still interested in the story, at some point.

Last year's one, I am still working on editing and moving it – it turned out that

it needed a bit of a different direction, so I'm moving it in a different direction.

I think that's something that I could do something with, and that's the plan for

this year as well.

But it's OK when that happens, when it's a dud idea or you decide actually that

you don't like it, it's only been a month.

Ali: Exactly. It's not like you've committed five years of your life to this novel

only to decide, actually, this isn't working at all.

Frances: Yeah, exactly. I think it takes a bit of the mystique away from writing a

novel like that.

Ali: It makes it easier to have a go, even if you're not feeling 100% confident or

if you've never done anything like a novel before. People can just launch in and

give it a go for a month. And as you say, it's a month of your life, it's not a huge

commitment.



Frances: Being quite concentrated like that, it makes it more exciting, and it

gives it a different feel. So even though I am writing most days at the

moment, NaNo is still something that I'm looking forward to, and it still feels

different, the energy is different then.

Ali: I guess it's an event, isn't it, because so many people are taking part all at

the same time. And I don't know, have you had any kind of collaboration with

other people doing NaNo alongside you?

Frances: Yeah, definitely. The social aspect of it is really important to me, and

so there are people that I've met through NaNo here who I now meet up

with weekly or every other week, and we chat a lot and do a bit of writing.

Yeah, so the community feel of it is really important to me as well. The forums

are really interesting and there are really nice, helpful people on the forums

who will sit down and seriously talk about what seemed like completely wild

ideas that anyone in real life would just look at you, and just edge away slowly.

Ali: You definitely need people who get it, as a writer, people who really

understand where you're coming from.

Frances: Yeah, you do, and the people who are attracted to NaNo tend to be

not super serious. They're also interested in lots of other pop culture stuff, I

find, so we spend a lot of time talking about TV and films and stuff. It's an

interesting group of people who are drawn to this, and if you're drawn to it

then you've automatically got something in common with other people.

Ali: Let's face it, most normal people don't want to try to write a novel in a

month.

Frances: Yeah. A lot of people think that it's silly, or a lot of people think it

doesn't work for them, and that's probably true, it doesn't work for everybody,

but if it works for you, then I think you'll get a lot out of it.

Ali: Well, thanks so much for joining us. I think we'll wrap up there, because I

want people to be able to go away and digest. But yeah, thanks for being here,

and very best of luck with this year's NaNo as well.

Frances: Thank you.



Corianne’s NaNoWriMo Experiences and Tips

Ali: Our third speaker on the seminar is Corianne, and I'll just start off by saying

welcome, Corianne. How many times have you taken part in NaNoWriMo, and

how did it go?

Corianne: Well, I have three buttons on my profile, but I only won once. And

before the seminar I looked at what I did, and apparently in 2012 I entered but

I wrote zero words, so that's not very good.

Two years later I entered again and then I wrote 1,359 words in the whole

month. Not a lot, as well. The only time I actually won NaNo was in 2011, and

then I wrote 52,417 words.

Ali: That's brilliant, fantastic. To win it even once is a huge achievement.

Corianne: Yes, it is, but looking back, the thing I wrote, it's not very good. I

changed direction midway through the month, so I was not very happy with it

at the end of the month. I didn't finish the story, I just passed 50,000 and I

thought, OK, I'll forget about it now.

What Corianne Got Out Of NaNoWriMo

Ali: Let's just stick with that for a minute. I'm going to actually jump around in

my questions a bit. Because that was basically my own experience of NaNo:

the one time that I won it, in 2007, I ditched the novel afterwards. I really

wasn't happy with it.

But there were other positive effects of doing it. So did you feel that even

though you didn't go on and use that writing, did you get anything out of NaNo

– did you feel it helped you develop a better writing habit or something?

Corianne: Ah, yes, because it does force you to write constantly, and I'm really

a person who's motivated by the charts.

On the website you have a chart and you have your daily goal words, and I'm

really the kind of person who will try to go over the goal.

I think that was good, that I managed to write so many words, and it's a sense

of achievement. But in the end, I don't think it's really my thing. The reason

that I tried to participate again and again was that I liked that I was making

progress, and that it was a way to motivate myself.



Ali: I don't think NaNo is necessarily right for everyone. I think it's definitely a

good thing to try and I'm not sure it's quite my thing. I have ambivalent

feelings about it.

Corianne’s Tips for First-Time NaNo-ers

Ali (cont): What tips would you have, then, for somebody who's just taking

their first steps, who's just doing NaNoWriMo maybe for the first time?

Obviously you've had some really great success, and you've had some times

when it didn't work out – what tips would you have for just getting to that

50,000 words?

Corianne: For me personally, I think you have to start off in the first week and

try to write over the daily goal. Because I get really demotivated if I don't write

on the first day, and then I think, OK, I'll do it tomorrow ... and if I don't do it

then, and it still says zero words, I'm very likely to not write at all in the whole

month, because the amount that you have to catch up on seems so much.

So it would definitely be a good thing to just go in and just write as much as

you can, and go over the daily goal.

Ali: That’s a really good way to get off to a good start in Week 1. Because once

you get on a roll, it's easy to stay on it, and once you start falling behind, as you

say, it seems so much work to catch up.

Corianne: Exactly. And there are going to be days that you can't write, or that

you just have something else on, and then it's OK to not write for a day if you

don't have that much to catch up on.

Ali: If you do just a bit extra every day then you can get a few days ahead,

yeah.

What Would Corianne Do Differently Next Time?

Ali (cont): So if you do NaNo again this year, or if you do it again next year,

what are you going to do differently compared to previous times?

Corianne: Well, the previous times I've always started it without a plan, I'm a

typical pantser. But the next time I do it I would really like to have a certain

idea of what I'm going to write, or to have a structure. I’d like to have

something to work on, and then at the end of the month I'm actually happy



with what I've worked on. Not just that I've written something that's 50,000

words, but those 50,000 words that are absolutely about nothing.

Ali: Sure – you want to come out of the month with something that you then

want to work on and develop, rather than just that was a good experience,

maybe, but the words aren't ones you want to keep.

Do you have a sense of how much planning is about right, for you? Is it just

having a very brief idea of maybe the beginning, the middle and the end, or do

you want an in-depth plan, or maybe something between the two?

Corianne: Well, I am working on something now, I've been working on it I think

for a year on and off. I haven't gone very far, I'm just working on some

character backgrounds. It's a science fiction world, so I'm doing some

worldbuilding et cetera.

I have a vague idea of where I want the story to go, but it is a story I would not

be able to write just by the seat of my pants, I would really need to have an

idea of what happens where and so on. I don’t think I will be able to do that for

this November, but maybe for next year.

Ali: Yeah, although NaNoWriMo is just November, you do need to plan a little

bit ahead. It’s not something where you get to the 31st of October and think

“Right, tomorrow I'm going to write a novel!”

You do have to have a little bit of planning time, if it's going to be successful. I

mean, if you're going to run a marathon you do have to do some training, not

just launch in.

Corianne’s Post-NaNo Experience

Ali (cont): Just to wrap up – did you feel that in terms of the writing you have

been doing after NaNo, you writing has been maybe stronger? Because you

wrote 50,000 words, which is fantastic, and I think the more words we write

the better we get. Do you feel your writing has improved as a result?

Corianne: I think mostly my writing habits have improved. I really try to write

every day or every other day, and a lot of the times it doesn't work, but yeah,

one of the effects is I do know it's very good to be writing every day, or at least

regularly, and really making progress, measurably.

So that's something I try to achieve, but it's very hard sometimes.



Ali: I agree – I often have great intentions and then it doesn't always quite

work out. But you're completely right, that if you can write every day or even

every other day, or just on a really regular basis, it just gives you this whole

chain of successes and then it's much easier to build on. I think that applies

during November for NaNo, but any time of the year as well.

Corianne: Exactly, and one of the things I also do sometimes is make a chart

in Excel, like the chart in NaNoWriMo, and I have a column with all my word

counts of the days, and then I just make a simple graph and you see the line

going up and up and up.

It really works for me to, at the end of a session, put in my word count.

Ali: It's like a little reward for writing, and then you get to see your progress

Well, thanks so much for joining us, Corianne. It's been really great to hear

about your experiences, and I think that'll be helpful to other people who are

maybe facing this for the first time or who are maybe giving NaNo a go and

they've had zero words or a couple of thousand words, and they really want to

make it different this year or next year. Thanks so much!

Corianne: Yeah, thank you.

Summing Up and Key Tips

It was really cool to get to talk to Dana and Frances and Corianne. I’m keen to

do this again if we can find a seminar topic in future that would really suit

having a few different voices and perspectives from within Writers’ Huddle.

If there’s a topic you’d like to see, do let me know, and I’ll have a think about

how that could work. I’d really like the seminars to be more interactive than

just me, or maybe me and a guest speaker, talking at everyone else in Writers’

Huddle.

I wanted to just say a few words of summing up at this point. I’ll tell you briefly

about my own experiences with NaNoWriMo. I’ve not been nearly as

successful as Frances, who I’m a wee bit envious of. I’m very impressed by her

work ethic and dedication.



Ali’s NaNo Experience

I won NaNo once, in 2007. I wrote 50,000 words of a novel, straight from the

beginning – it wasn’t a novel I’d already started on. I later ditched it. I decided I

didn’t actually like it. But it was a good experience and it was what got me into

being able to write around my day job, and what led me quite quickly into

blogging and then, less than a year later from NaNo, into working for myself

and making a living from my writing.

So that was pretty cool. I gained a lot more than just the words written.

I’ve tried NaNo in two or three other years with different goals. I think I’ve

been less successful with that because I’ve split my focus – so I’ve been trying

to do 20,000 words on fiction and 20,000 words on non-fiction, or something. I

think whatever you’re going to go with in NaNo, even if you’re going to go with

a goal less than the 50,000, I’d really recommend that you just focus on one

project.

For me, I think the 50,000 word target is a good one because it’s challenging

and it doesn’t give me any wiggle room.

Key Tips for Writers Thinking About NaNoWriMo

Just a few tips that I thought were coming out from talking to Dana and

Frances and Corianne:

#1: The Importance of Community

I’ve never been great at joining in with the NaNo forums or going to meet-ups

locally or anything like that – NaNo always seems to come, for me, at

particularly busy times of the year. I think that probably if I had, I’d have been

more motivated and would have felt more accountable.

If you are taking part, I’d really recommend that you try to find other people

doing NaNo who you can physically meet up with and maybe write with. If

that’s not possible, at least take part in the fourms. There’s a Facebook group

for NaNo, and obviously you can talk to people in Writers’ Huddle – we have a

specific NaNo forum. Make the most of being part of a community of writers

all taking part in the same event at the same time, which I think is quite

exciting. There’s a real spirit and enthusiasm to NaNo.



#2: You Don’t Have to Win

Even if you don’t “win” [hit the 50,000 word target before the end of Nov 30th],

don’t feel it was wasted, don’t feel you haven’t succeeded. Taking part is very

much what counts, and if you don’t get very far, at least you’ll have learned

something about your writing process, about what didn’t work – and you can

give it another go the following year.

If you can really push forward and hit that 50,000 words, it’s a huge boost to

your morale. It gives you a substantial chunk of fiction that you could, if you

want to, develop further. Or you could say that these are 50,000 words I

needed to write to get through this part of my writing apprenticeship; I’m going

to move on from them, they’re not something I want to work on further. That’s

completely valid. Don’t feel disappointed if the writing you come out with is

something that you later decide you don’t particularly want to invest further

time and energy in.

#3: Tracking Your Progress

The statistics side of NaNo, seeing your progress every day, seeing the chart go

up is really motivating. Even if you’re not taking part in NaNo, you could use

something similar. You could track your own progress on your novel in a

spreadsheet, you could post it on your blog, you can get little widgets for your

sidebar that do that and so on.

It can just be really encouraging to see how you’re getting on day by day and

week by week, and watch the words add up – particularly if you can build an

unbroken chain of days on which you’re writing.

#4: NaNoWriMo Isn’t Right for Everyone

I will say that NaNo is maybe not for everyone. I don’t think it’s ideal for all

writers. It might be that you’re working on projects that don’t really suit

writing 50,000 words in a month – maybe you’re working on short stories, or

you’re working on non-fiction or something.

It’s not right for everyone, every year. I’ve definitely had some years when it

was really not going to be practical for me to do a novel in a month in

November. Last year, I was eight months pregnant in November – that was not

going to be the time to focus on a novel!



It may also be that you’re also at a different stage in a writing project, so

perhaps you’re on the second draft of a novel and you want to focus on

editing.

Don’t feel that you have to do it every single year, if you’ve been doing it

before. Don’t feel that you have to take part just because friends are taking

part, if you don’t want to and it’s not right for you.

You do have to go into NaNo quite wholeheartedly if you’re going to see much

success.

#5: Plan Ahead

Finally, I would strongly planning ahead. Don’t just decide on October 31st that

you’re going to do NaNo – because you really need to have a sense of who

your characters are, you need to know where the story is going, maybe some

key plot points along the way, how it’s going to end, and so on.

If you don’t plan, you end up with – like Dana – a character that just goes off in

some crazy direction and refuses to talk to you, or you just run out of steam a

couple of chapters in. That makes the whole thing a lot tougher.

If you’re trying to plan as you go along, or if you feel like you’re writing and it’s

not going anywhere, it’s frustrating.

You might want to relisten to K.M. Weiland’s seminar on story structure, or

give it a listen for the first time if you’ve not listened to that one before, and

just nail down some of the plot points, some of what’s going to happen during

the novel. Obviously it can change during the month – but if you’ve got a bit of

a roadmap, it can really help you stay on track.

Use October, if you can, to do some planning and some preparation for NaNo –

that might also require some practical preparation, like getting other stuff in

your life cleared out of the way so you can really focus during November.

If you will be taking part, please do let us know. We’ve got a NaNoWriMo

forum in Writers’ Huddle, and it would be lovely to be able to encourage one

another. I hope you’ll also find friends and fellow writers to connect with

through NaNo more broadly, but it would be great if within the Huddle, we

have a group of us encouraging one another along.

http://www.writershuddle.com/forums/nanowrimo/

http://www.writershuddle.com/forums/nanowrimo/



If you’re doing it for the first time, very best of luck – it’s an exciting ride. I

think you’ll definitely learn something about yourself and your writing, and it

can only be a useful experience (and hopefully a good experience) for you.

If you’re doing it for the second or third or fourth time, maybe think about

what didn’t work for you last time, if you didn’t win, or what did work for you

well, if you did win, and what could you do this year to really set yourself up

for success.

Very best of luck, and I hope to see you in the forums.

Useful Links and Further Reading

Discuss anything relating to this seminar in the Writers’ Huddle forums:

writershuddle.com/forums/seminars/november-2015-nanowrimo-how-to-

write-a-novel-in-a-month

Seminar: Structuring and Outlining Your Novel, with K.M. Weiland – learn

about the different structural points that should appear in set places in your

novel.

http://www.writershuddle.com/forums/seminars/november-2015-nanowrimo-how-to-write-a-novel-in-a-month

http://www.writershuddle.com/forums/seminars/november-2015-nanowrimo-how-to-write-a-novel-in-a-month

http://www.writershuddle.com/seminars/feb2015



Articles / blog posts:

How to Prepare for NaNoWriMo: To Outline or Not To Outline, Brian Klems,

Writer’s Digest. Sensible, though fairly brief, thoughts on preparing in advance.

5 Tips for #NaNoWriMo I’ve Learned from My 464-Day Writing Streak, Jamie

Todd Rubin. Some great advice not just about NaNo but about writing regularly

(even if, like Jamie, you have a full time job plus small children).

Monkeys with Typewriters & Why I Hate NaNoWriMo, Robert Smedley, Fuel

Your Writing. Not everyone loves NaNoWriMo! While I share some of Robert’s

reservations, I don’t agree with a lot of what he says here. Your mileage may

vary!

NaNoWriMo: The Good, The Bad, and The Really, Really Ugly, Chris Brecheen.

a rather more nuanced, and detailed, take on the pros and cons of

NaNoWriMo. Again, I don’t agree with all of this.

http://www.writersdigest.com/online-editor/how-to-prepare-for-nanowrimo-to-outline-or-not-to-outline

http://www.jamierubin.net/2014/10/29/5-tips-for-nanowrimo-ive-learned-from-my-464-day-writing-streak/

http://www.fuelyourwriting.com/monkeys-with-typewriters-why-i-hate-nanowrimo/

http://chrisbrecheen.blogspot.co.uk/2012/10/nanowrimo-good-bad-and-really-really_1.html

NaNoWriMo: How to Write a Novel in a Month€¦ · NaNoWriMo started in 1999 with 21 people taking part, and it’s grown year on year. In 2014, over 325,000 people took part all

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