13 Awesome Nanowrimo Tips from Someone Who Has (finally) Won

There's a few things you can do in preparation for your own Nanowrimo attempt next year, should you wish to join in the literary Running of the Bulls. I plan to use this list as a reminder next year to get my head in the game. So here's 13 of my hard won, best and hottest tips from 3 runs at Nanowrimo:

Before November
* Attend to the ergonomics or otherwise of where you write. My best time was about 1200 words in an hour, mostly it was less than that, so I spent over 50 hours sitting at the dining room table I have my computer on. Dining room tables are great for eating off, crap for typing at. Don't let your wrists/elbows/back take the pain - fix it up however you can.

* Don't be shy, lay in stores of staples. Why waste precious writing time queuing to buy coffee, loo paper, MREs, gin or chocolate? Exactly, too frustrating, so ensure sufficient supplies of these and other important items are procured in bulk in October. (A lesson I learnt on Day 2 of my first -failed- Nano.)

* Start saying 'NO, Thank You' early to anything that is not on your mission-critical social list. Sure you don't want to be a freaky hermit, but you need to find 50 or 60 hours of alert time in November and that is not as easy as it might sound like. I really needed a full day on each weekend just to catch up from the work flatline.

* Get a writing buddy if you can. Someone roughly in your timezone, or at least who is up hitting the keyboard when you are. The moral support is invaluable, especially in the difficult 3rd week.

* Align your timezones. I lost a day at the beginning because my machine was set to the wrong timezone and I didn't notice until on the 28th it gave me a one day countdown. Total Freakout! Save yourself the worry, and save yourself the indignity of having the comp end a day early for you.

* Start cutting down on TV or whatever other recreational narcotics you use to dull the passage of time. You will be needing that as alert time. If there is a particular type of tv, movie or documentary that inspires your planned story or the direction you'd like to write in, by all means lay in some dvds of shows you have already seen. This will be your comfort viewing. I chose Entourage, and a science doco series on SBS.

During November
* Write every day. Your goal is to produce 1 670 words per day. What the heck - why not round it up to 2gs? You're looking for a challenge right?

* Keep a scratch sheet for noting incidental characters names. You'll be in a fervour of creativity in the first week and during that lush 14 000 words you produce will be throw away characters who will rudely turn up later in your story and it can be annoying to have to trawl through your MS looking for their names. Especially when you make up silly names for them. I invented a manga series that I could later on not remember how to spell. Embarrassment.

* Don't watch tv until after you've done your words for the day. Even then think twice unless you've promised yourself the reward of a comfort episode. Likewise, I took the modem (yes I still have an external modem) off the computer to reduce the constant temptation to browse wiki or check emails until there was word count to upload. You may not be as weak willed as I am. More power to you.

* Keep saying no. This is your month goddammit, surely it can wait a few weeks? (My sister thoughtfully arranged the birth of her first child for December. That's teamwork!)

* Remember the rules are just a 50 000 word count. The need for a beginning middle and end that I mentioned last year was my own rule. Any expectations about quality are your own (excess) baggage.

* Write a bit more. Sneak in another paragraph or another scene. Take notes during boring meetings at work, or on the commute, or while you're on a boring phone call. Keep a whiteboard marker in the shower. Whatever. Momentum is your friend in the Kung Fu of writing. Skip bits that are sucking or dragging with a summary line eg "and then they fought. when things were better..." is a perfectly acceptable place keeper. Later, in week 3 for example, when you hit the plot doldrums these one liners are a brilliant place to revisit and flesh out and will give you another thousand words or two plus they give your story brain enough of a break to come up with something to move on with.


* Have fun. Why the hell else would you sign up for something like this if it wasn't fun? Write what you love to read, write for the joy of splashing words around, write for the sadistic pleasure of making your Main Character a total fuckup, whatever turns you on. Just stay in touch with the fun of it all.

So if you have ever said "I'd like to write a novel one day..." why not make November 1st 2010 the day you start that novel?
Go on, put it in your diary now. Of course there's no need to wait until them, but during November you'll join with 200andsomething thousand people worldwide who don't think you're crazy and who are going to applaud whatever you achieve and support whatever vision you have, because they're all doing it too. That's not something that happens any old day of the week, and with these 13 tips, you'll have an insider's edge on keeping your bar chart of word count growing.