NaNoWriMo 09: Tools for Success

50,000 words in 30 days? Sounds hard right, but it's entirely possible, with the right story, a few good characters, some determination, and a few other things. NaNoWriMo is coming to a close for this year and I've just polled a few of the participants and winners about what they felt helped them the most to get the words out, keep the story going, concentrate, and keep at it all month long. Here's what we, the writers, have to say.

A Good Story - Don't go in unprepared. Sure, I winged half my novel and had no idea where it was going to end, but I did have a clear beginning and a general idea of what was going to happen. Some people outline their entire novel ahead of time and hey, if that works for you, go for it. That does not work for everyone, and even if it does, you may not stick to it. You don't need it all figured out, you just have to love it.

A Support System - NaNo is not for the weak, don't face it alone! It helps a lot if you have other people participating at the same time as you. I think that is a huge part of what got me to the finish line this year, was knowing that my friends were writing away and I would be letting them down. Knowing that they were all cheering me on. Other writers help, but so does a simple support system of friends and family. Be prepared for a lot of people thinking you are crazy, I know my family did/does, but they still asked me every now and again things were going. My mom even asked me about my word count in an attempt to get me working when I was sick as a dog on day 29.

A Sounding Board - In addition to support, find a friend, a fellow writer/nanoer perhaps, that you can bounce ideas off of. I know I would not have been able to work through a few rough patches in my novel (or start actually, starting was hard) without the help of Mike, Jesse, & Jordyn. Sometimes your friends have good suggestions, or maybe you just need to talk things out to see what needs to be done.

Snacks - You need sustenance, don't starve yourself just to finish your novel on time. Plus, I think the simple action of eating something stimulates your brain. A lot of writers turn to candy for this, for me it's tortilla chips. Or maybe gum is more your style, keeping with your diet too (you dedicated person, you).

Drinks - This is just as important as snacks, if not more. Don't let dehydration get you down! Also, most drinks--for writers anyway--involve caffeine. Caffeine is the writer's best friend. It keeps you going, it energizes you (albeit temporarily), and it keeps you up. Or if you are a morning person, it wakes you up. It has been said (I forget which author, forgive me) that writers are simply machines for turning coffee into novels. I don't drink coffee, so I think it's that we process caffeine and output word counts. Also, hot chocolate, iced tea, Gatorade, Diet Coke, and Coca-Cola are all very good alternatives to coffee that writers swear by.

Cough Medicine & Vitamin C - This is just me, I think, but if you are caught sick in the middle of NaNo (or at the very end like I was), trust me, these will be your best friends. Take them (within reason, I am not promoting drug abuse here) to get you through it. Your body will thank you for it.

Sleep - You will want to stay up really late on some nights, but if you are falling asleep at the keyboard, those lost hours sleeping will be worth it. When you are tired your brain doesn't function at its best and your novel will suck. You will write things that upon rereading in December will make you question your sanity. You will stop sentences in the middle. You will have random letters from when you literally fell asleep on your keyboard. Sleep is good, try it some time.

Set a time for writing - This doesn't work for everyone, sometimes you just have to write when the moment is right, but with NaNo, you don't always have time for that. Figure out when you write best, whether in the morning, just after lunch, or in the wee hours of the morning when the only other people awake are night guards and those poor souls who work the 24 hour drive thru at McDonald's*

Free Time - Essentially, going along with the previous point, write when you can. If you can fit a few words in on your lunch break, do it. Every word counts. Ray Freisen & I both write really well when traveling, in cars and on planes. Do not do this if you are the driver, of course, but other than that, take advantage of that time, make it worth your while.

No Distractions, No Internet - This is the hardest one for most writers, cutting out the distractions. The wonderful E. Lockhart turned me on to a program called MacFreedom which is cruel, but effective. Basically you turn it on & it locks your internet so that you can't access it until the time is up. You can press all the buttons you can find and scream as much as you want, but it will not let you online. And once you get over how crazymaking that is, it helps. I have also locked myself in Starbucks without internet and managed to knock out 3,000+ words in a single sitting**. But some people honestly cannot do this. I am usually one of those people, I have to admit, but they also need a certain degree of strength. So you can only write in short bursts & need to check your twitter every half hour, okay, but don't check it every half minute.

Music - Another tip that works for some, but not others. Sometimes it just depends on the day. I swear by Explosions in the Sky and whenever I am listening to them, I write really great stuff. Other days I need total silence and have been known to threaten people in order to get it. If it works, do it.

Insanity - It's something all writers throughout history have had: just a little bit of insanity. This is doubly important for NaNo, I believe, because you have to be just a little crazy to want to take on this project

All of that said, there are no clear "do's" and "don'ts" of writing, there is just you and your novel. You know what works for you, so do it. Do whatever it takes.

Congrats to all of those who finished this year! We did it!

*For the record, I appreciate you serving me ice cream, even at 3 AM.
** It helps that Starbucks is magic. They'd have to be, or why would so many writers go there?

NaNoWriMo 09: Zenith, Favourite Lines Chapters 1-9

I've been posting my favourite/oddest sentences on my tumblr & I thought since I never update here, I'd share them all with you folks as well.

Chapter 1
“So, Rob Mason, what do you know about hobo-eating alligators?”

Chapter 2
She didn’t understand potatoes the way they did.
((I spend an awful lot of time talking about that silly potato))

Chapter 3
That one message, twelve lines long, had broken the strong old man.

Chapter 4
Everything was traded for safety. It was the one thing they had in abundance these days, if nothing else.

Chapter 5
“The price of convenience,” she said scornfully. “Everything is so convenient and so fast, and we lose sight of what’s really important anymore..."

Chapter 6
“Ah yes, those ever important minutes we’re saving with everything these days,” she commented. “Pretty soon we’ll have one thousand four hundred and forty of them, all to ourselves, to do whatever we wish.”

Chapter 7
“Do you remember that day?” Risty asked suddenly. She sat down in the clovers and continued staring up at the clouds.
“Which day?”
She turned her head quickly and looked him dead in the eye. “The day the sky fell.”

Chapter 8
Sometimes sharing a loss made it easier to lose, even if you had just met the person you’d be sharing with. They both needed something, and maybe the other one could help with it.

Chapter 9
It had a thermometer, barometer, seismometer, and every other kind of -ometer a man could have need for, and a screen to monitor them all from.

NaNoWriMo 09: Do you do research?

And if you do, what sorts of things do you research? Do you only look up the really big things, or the small things too?

I seem to research only really odd things.

My list so far consists of (but is not limited to): potatoes, the great Irish potato famine, the Great Chicago Fire, maglev trains, the history of flight, airplanes, train bombings across the world (especially those in London, New York, & Moscow), clouds, crop circles, & urban legends.

I'm pretty sure my novel is the first thing to combine all of those together.

On Lauren Myracle, Reviews, & NaNoWriMo

I've recently created a new group on Facebook: TEAM MYRACLE. This is a response to the feud between John Green and Maureen Johnson over the book they co-wrote with Lauren Myracle. Lauren has taken an inspiring position of neutrality in the matter and I believe we should all follow her example!

JOIN TEAM MYRACLE HERE
(and yes, Lauren herself is a member)

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Two reviews going up in a moment, Paper Towns by John Green & Feed by MT Anderson. You may remember that I have reviewed Feed before, but I decided to do one for my school's newspaper and wrote a new one! I included a few points from the old one, but for the most part it is brand new!
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I am very behind on my NaNo right now. I missed two days worth of writing because of my massive school projects. I have a persuasive speech due on Friday, which I have had to do surveys & an audience analysis for. My English project has taken over my life with its bibliography & electronic notes. Thesis is due on Friday, but I really need to finish these notes first! PR project is actually going along well because I have such a great group (for the most part anyway). Religion required a 7 page paper on Judaism from me, and soon another 3 pages on our Christianity readings. School is insane, it really is.
But I am confident that I can catch up--I did once already, so I can surely do it again!
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P.S. for any fans of American Girl or Abigail Breslin or cute movies or movies about the Depression--go watch Kit Kittredge! I saw it for the first time last night and LOVED it. Abigail Breslin, Zach Mills, & Max Thieriot were all amazing as usual and the plot was interesting and the movie was cute and--oh just go watch it already!

NaNo Advice: End of Week 1

Good Ways to Boost Your Word Count and Keep Yourself Writing

I've learned a few tricks along the way from my own NaNo experiences (from this year as well as 06) and from other competitors ranging from first timers to old hats. I thought I'd take a little break from writing to share these with you. (btw, this is not me avoiding actual writing. This is me coping with my ADD in a positive way.)

+ Add a lot of defining words. "He said" "She said" may not always be necessary, but put them in there, an extra two words per piece of dialogue are a great way to add to your word count.

Take that a step farther. "She said, sounding offended." or "He told her with unquestionable certainty upon his face." Add as much as you want without sounding too wordy!

Of course, if you don't mind wordy, by all means, get that word count up! If the count is what matters, take a lesson from Dickens & write up a storm! Sentences that take up a full page? No problem!

+ Another great way to add to your word count is to include quotes. You don't have to wrack your brains trying to think of something new to type! Find a quote that works with your story and roll with it! John Green used "Song of Myself" at least fifty times in his NYT Best Seller "Paper Towns" and writers like Cornelia Funke, Ann Brashares, & Jasper Fforde begin every chapter with an applicable quote! There's no shame in borrowing words to raise your count.

Right now my own characters are quoting Shakespeare's famous lines from "As You Like It": "All the world's a stage and all the men and women merely players. They have their exits and their entrances, and one man in his time plays many parts." The best part? It fits my story perfectly. In fact, it has greatly inspired me and helps convey my theme of acting & masks in high school even more than I could alone!

+ Word wars. Timed, themed word wars with a friend. These work best through some form of instant messenger, and hey, there's one built into Facebook if you wish to use it! I personally stick primarily to MSN, so if you want to war with me through that (I still have friends on my list from NaNo in 2006 I warred with daily), leave a comment here and I can send you my contact info.

This is a great way to boost your count quickly and might give you some new inspiration for how to deal with a section if you choose to use the theme (you need not, you can just continue writing for the wars). If you have teenaged characters like I do, any theme can fit what they're talking about. Just today in the lunch room with my friends we talked about the origins of "saved by the bell" and ended the period by singing "Gaston" from Beauty & the Beast. Nothing is really far out of the realm for us college students, and the same goes for many other age groups so long as you have a good group of friends to chat with! It's okay if your dialogue is ridiculous. Sometimes it even makes the characters more believable.

+ A tip to keep going and keep up with your word counts (though admittedly I am behind because of a late start, but catching up quickly) is to set up a goal/reward system with yourself. This is what has worked best for me this past week. Prior to NaNo's kickoff this year my internet was down for almost a full week. I generally watch my favorite television programs online, so I had missed a few episodes. I would tell myself "Okay Jez, write 1000 words and you can watch Grey's. Then after you write another 1000 words, you can watch Private Practice." I even made the amount of words relate to the amount of time I'd spend not writing when I was enjoying the reward part. 1000 words for 1 hour of television. 500 words for a half hour. Or I'd get to a certain milestone before I could write up a new blog post (such as this one, I just finished chapter 10 & went over 9000 words).

+ If you're going to procrastinate, find a way to make it work to your advantage. I can honestly check Facebook every half hour or so with a clear conscience because my characters spend so much of their lives in the digital world. A fair amount of my novel consists of wall posts, instant messages, and SMS texts. So, by seeing what everyone else is doing on Facebook, I'm really researching how my characters should talk, what kinds of typos they should make, and how they'll spend their time.

When I spent ten minutes reading Michael Wesch's blog post on a look back at his famous YouTube video, A Vision of Students Today, I was gathering a teacher's perspective on how children learn today, and how the school system limits learning. One of Delilah's favorite teachers, her choir director Mrs. Rembrandt, agrees with Wesch and I was able to use his ideas to my advantage, and make them fit the story.

With a little creativity any time-waster can be used in your novel. Maybe your character likes to avoid homework by playing fifty games of Tetris just like you do. Figure it out. Make it work. I could tell you not to procrastinate at all, but that would be stupid and hypocritical for me to do. You are a writer, you are going to procrastinate. It's part of who we are. So instead of avoiding the "meaningless" ways of procrastination, make it work for you!

+ And try a program like Word Counter if you're on a Mac, or an online widget for PCs to keep track of how far you are in your novel. If you see that you are 79% of where you need to be for the day (that's where I am now, I'm behind, remember?) it seems a lot less farther away than if you were to take out the calculator & figure out that you have another 2456 words to go until you're back on track for the month. Plus it's cool to watch it update in Word Counter, it makes me feel more accomplished for those 100 little words I wrote than if I had only barely increased my word count for the day.

+ Most importantly, don't give up. So you're 2456 words behind, so what? That's exactly where I am, and I'm not letting it bother me. There are 23 more days in the month. That's just 107 extra words a day, that's nothing! You can catch up in no time at all! It's only week 1, you've still got time. Don't give up now, just keep going and even if you don't win, you can come close. Then when NaNo09 rolls around, you'll know you can get to 40,000 words and 50,000 won't seem so scary. That's what I'm doing. In 2006 I made it to 25,000 words before my computer crashed. I knew that I could have made it that year, and because I made it at least halfway that year before I was cut off due to technical difficulties, I know that I can make it this year. And I think if you really try, you can too.

I leave you now with two quotes that I hope shall inspire you, or at the very least, you can use them in your novel about someone writing during NaNoWriMo (hey, it happens).

If writers stopped writing about what happened to them, then there would be a lot of empty pages.
Elaine Liner, We Got Naked, Now What, SXSW 2006

Please write again soon. Though my own life is filled with activity, letters encourage momentary escape into others lives and I come back to my own with greater contentment.
Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey, 'A Woman of Independent Means'

Other helpful links: Maureen Johnson (accomplished writer of 6 YA books!) tells you how to survive NaNoWriMo. Involves lots of pretty pictures from old movies & witty observations.
Professor Michael Wesch's blog on Revisiting "A Vision of Students Today", which I mentioned above & used in my own novel.
The Quotation Page's Quotes of the Day. You can use these or use this site to search for quotes that pertain to your plot.


(Now, if I could write this whole blog post, a full 1448 words in twenty minutes, surely you can write 50,000 words in a whole month)

NaNo08: Day 3

It's day 3, with 1722 words, and I've just found a new toy. But it's actually going to help me with my NaNoWriMo challenge!

See, I'm working on my new MacBook this year, and I didn't have a good way to count words. I did a quick Google search & came up with a neat little application called "Word Counter" by Super Magnus. I just downloaded it & I'm having a lot of fun with it. I can type my novel up in Word Counter (and back up in TextEdit) and it will count my words as I go along & displays them at the bottom of the screen. I set mine to update every 15 seconds so I wouldn't keep hitting "count" and loose time. And this way it shows me how far I have to go, and how far I've come. It's a great motivator!

Another thing I like is that it has a progress tracker where you can put in a goal of how many words you want & I'll update with a little progress bar & a percentage. Right now I'm at a measly 3%, but I'm looking to fix that tonight. And tomorrow is my day off, no school, no work (my only day off all week), so I should be able to get quite a lot done then!

Also, I set up a reward system for myself. For every thousand words I'll allow myself to watch one of the episodes of my favorite shows I've missed this week when my internet was down. As soon as I finish this section here, I get to watch Wolverine & the X-Men, a new cartoon I love (I'm a big comic geek, X-Men especially). And I'll still have Private Practice, Grey's Anatomy, & The Office to tempt me!

I'll update later with my word count at the end of the day. We'll see how far I can get in the next 6.5 hours!

NaNo: Day 2

I am so far behind on my NaNo. I have gotten some done, but that's only what I wrote in the first 20 minutes of day 1 before my computer's battery died, and what I wrote in my notebook on train rides to & from Chicago (I wish I had a picture to add to my "where to write" series). I have reasons for why I'm so far behind & why I haven't posted.

Why I'm behind: On Saturday I worked from 6:30-14:15, then I went directly to the train station. I met up with my good friend Karina there, who is from Missouri & was only in town for the one day. I hadn't seen her in 15 months, so it was fantastic to see her again! Then she had to leave, so I met up with two of my other friends who were coincidentally in the city on the same day. It worked out really well. We had to wait in line for 2 hours for pizza, but it was good pizza. Then we went to Navy Pier where I rode the big Ferris wheel for the first time (that particular one that is). Then the train ride home. One of them, my best friend Jen, stayed the night here so my mom wasn't so nervous about me taking the late train home by myself. In the morning we had to go to this strange church as part of my field trip requirement for my religion class. And she was here all day long. I did get a tiny bit of writing done in that time, but not much. Mostly I typed up what I had written on the train...and then I made my computer read it back to me. I didn't know it could do that. I had a little too much fun with that function. It's like the YouTube audio preview, but better!

Why I haven't posted: I can't remember if I mentioned this or not, but I've not had internet access for the majority of the week. And I was busy, as I said in the above explanation/excuse. But I'm posting now.


My review of Paper Towns will probably be up tomorrow, since it was in the school newspaper already (I like to wait until it's published). Until then, enjoy Lizz's awesome review of it in video form. And then you can watch the rest of the video wherein she interviews NerdFighters about what salad ingredient they would be. I'm the one who makes the very dorky comment about lettuce. The one right before me is Jen, and two after me is my sister Kayla.

Being Edited & NaNoWriMo

I'm sorry I haven't posted yet about meeting Louis Sachar, Cornelia Funke, & John Green all in one week (and I caught the tail end of Laurie Halse Anderson's speech on Wednesday night too), but I haven't had internet access in a few days. I'm going to try to get Comcast out to my house soon, but my mom won't call to set up an appointment, even though she's home a lot more than I am. I'm on the school's network right now & only have a little bit of time before my next class.

I was just flipping through the newest issue of my school's newspaper, The Blazer and read over the book review I had submitted. I realized something: I had been edited. I knew this would happen, but it still bothers me. Mostly because I sound really repetitive & unimaginative at the end. Then I got to thinking about how this would affect me as a writer. In the future, I will deal with editors who want me to change one thing or another in my books, short stories, articles, etc. that I might not want to change. But here's the difference: "big time" editors will (or at least should be) professional. They will (or should) tell me what they want changed and give me the opportunity to change it before it goes to press. They will not take that liberty upon themselves without asking me first. Some editors might, I realize, but if they do, they're not being very professional about their job and at that point, I really hope I'm not the author they are dealing with.

I'd expand, but I have to keep this short so I can eat before I go to class (I was going to wait until after, but I'm getting really hungry now).

In just a few hours, NaNoWriMo will kick off and I will again participate. You may remember I participated two years ago, but had to take last year off because of personal/family issues. But I'm back this year & I am very excited! I don't have a plot all planned out, in fact, it's not even there as much as I would like it to be before I begin plowing through, but I'll deal with it!
I'll try to make updates like it did in 2006, with tips I learn along the way, word counts, & just "I am avoiding my writing" posts. With the internet situation as it is, I cannot guarantee this, but I will try. I want to.

If anything, I might just learn how much I want an editor to change things for me, haha.

If you want to friend me on the NaNo pages, my username is once again TypesetJez and I've linked that so you can find me (the NaNo site has temporarily disabled author searches to save its server some).

NaNoWriMo Participant Interviews Part 3: Casye

And now we come to the third and final installment of this year's NaNoWriMo participant interviews (unless any are out there who want to be interviewed...email me). Up to bat now is Casye who in my opinion is a spectacular writer. Unfortunately she did not finish her NaNo this year because she was too busy with her work in Children of Eden (which I can't wait to see btw), but she did find the time to answer my questions.

It's very hard to keep writing when you realize how bad it is, but the best thing to do is ignore it and continue. Remind yourself that you have no deadline for editing, just one for word count.

Like I always say: November is for writing, December is for editing (and/or burning)

My advice to other writers is write about what you love. If you pick something that you think will make millions of dollars, but you don't absolutely adore it, you're gonna go nowhere. I advise people to write what they really want to say and the things that they have always thought privately, but have been too afraid to say so outloud. Don't be afraid! Say exactly what you feel in novel form. It can even be social commentary.

I love that piece of advice, it's very true. This is probably why our research papers are so boring...

You can read the full interview with Casye here or go back and read the previous interviews with Anita and Jessica.

NaNoWriMo Participant Interviews, Part 2: Anita

Here is the second interview, in which I talk to published author Anita about her first year participating in NaNoWriMo. She tells us about pushing yourself to write and about how she managed to write an entire children's novel in a month.

A few snipets from the interview:

After my NaNoWriMo experience, I would say to any other writers wishing to give it a go – just be true to yourself and not worry about what everybody else is doing. I knew I was never going to write 50,000 words, as I was writing a children’s book. It was never destined to be that long. Once I realised and came to terms with this, it was a lot easier to just write.

I had come to a grinding halt, with doubts about my story and characters and even more concerns about the word count not rising as fast as desired. That was when I plotted the story and got on with it. I don’t like letting people down.

Thank you, Anita, so much for your input! Congratulations on your finished piece and good luck during the editing process. I think the best thing someone can do in this challenge is end up with something completed, despite its word count. You did a fabulous job your first year!

You can read the full interview with Anita here or read the first interview, with highschooler & winner Jessica here.

Hopefully I will hear from our third participant, Casye, soon & can post her interview as well.

NaNoWriMo Participant Interviews, Part 1: Jessica

November was a hectic month for 101,729 people in 2007. Not because Thanksgiving was coming and the local grocery was sold out of turkeys. Not because of doorbusters on Black Friday. The entire month was hectic for those people because those thousands were all writers participating in NaNoWriMo. I myself participated in NaNo last year, but was unable to join in the fun this year because I had a book to finish & working on something you started before November was not allowed. So I sat along the sidelines and cheered my friends and thousands I didn't know, on to victory! Many finished, many did not, but they all had a fun time while they laboriously pushed towards that golden 50,000th word in their new novel.

When the excitement ended, I took the opportunity to interview a few of those participants on their rushed writing experience, asking about hard deadlines, pushing yourself to write, and writing tips.

First off, we have Jessica. 2007 was her fourth year for NaNoWriMo and her first time to finish!

You can read the full interview here.

Here's a few highlights from this interview:

What was the hardest part about getting yourself to write?
We all have lives, friends, and just things we want to be doing. Not only do we have things we want to be doing, but things we have to do... like essays or family gatherings. I love being out of the house, so sitting down at my computer can be a pain...A new setting helped a lot.

My best advice to other people, especially NaNo-ers and other people who have a limited time to write something would be to just have fun. If it's not fun anymore, move on to another fun part. Get advice from friends, even if you never use it, it could inspire a great idea, the missing piece for your story.

Everyday, just write 10 words. They don't have to be good, or interesting, or anything much at all. Just ten words. Just put in a little effort every day. If you're stuck those ten words might get you unstuck, or at least for that day you know that you would have tried.

Jess had more to say about how to defeat the dreaded writer's block, characters not cooperating, and how her story has no end yet. You can read all of it here.

Congratulations on that and on getting over 50,000 words this year! Thank you for answering my questions, Jess, and I wish you the best of luck with your trilogy. I hope to be able to read the first part soon!

MIA lately, sorry//More on gifts

I've been a little MIA lately on the internets, I appologize. I posted here once and it was kind of a downer post on Christmas. Truth be told, I love Christmas, I just don't like buying gifts.

Why don't I like buying gifts? I'm going to blame my father for this one, my father & people like him.
See, my dad, gets up bright & early on Black Friday for all the great sales. And what does he do? He buys everything he wants for himself. How are the rest of us supposed to get him something when he's already gone and bought it all for himself? Not to mention he's hard to shop for to begin with.

I need his gift by Friday because that's when I celebrate Christmas with my dad this year. I think when I go shopping at the mall with my friend today I'm going to go into Sears or somewhere & go up to some normal looking dad kid of guy and ask him "If you were my dad, what would you want?"

Because I am not afraid to ask those kinds of questions. I think I proved that today when I asked anyone around me (including my sister) what kind of ornament they would want to receive from their boyfriend's daughter. I ended up with two very nice silver ornaments...and the lady next to me ended up with a rustic Moose I said I liked but wouldn't buy for my dad's tree. So, we helped each other. Communication is the key.


I will be catching up on blogs & all that this week, so please excuse my lateness on anything!

Also, I'm doing a little survey thing for people who participated in NaNoWriMo this year or any past years. Just a few questions for my blog here about writing, pushing yourself to write, & deadlines. If you want to help me out, please email me at lyokofans at yahoo dot com

NaNoWriMo 11 Tips for Day 11

It's day 11 already! Wow, time sure flies when you're writing. I'm still a first timer keep in mind, but I've compiled a list of 11 tips for nanowrimo participants.

1. Chat. I've been in the MSN/Yahoo chats every weeknight (hosted by the great janipanda) with other wrimo writers and it has certainly helped my story! The word wars and suggestions they all make are great. And the people are very nice, they'll even offer up help. Last night I asked for help naming a character and they all jumped to help.

2. Word war. The idea is to write as much as you can in 15 minutes, some are themed some aren't. Just write in short bursts, it significantly helps your word count!

3. Steal all the time you can. Lock your door, eat your meals at your desk, write during your breaks, and realize that you don't have to answer every phone call.

4. Don't you dare give up! Avoid that week 2 wall and keep at it. Do as much as you can and if you don't get your 50000 at least you tried, and there's always next year. "The only thing you can't edit is a blank page"-WrimoRadio

5. Play some music in the background, it helps. Maybe an old movie you've seen thousands of times, just be careful not to put the plot from there into your story.

6. Manage your time wisely. Keep up with the daily quotas (1,667 words a day roughly) and try not to fall too far behind. If you can't be at your computer, bring a notebook with you and brainstorm. There's always the option of longhand too.

7. Compromise with your characters. If you made it to day 11, you've realized already they are not your's, you are their's. Allow them to make changes, but don't let them take over. Find some common ground and run with it.

8. Back up your file! I cannot stress this enough, in fact, this is the second time I wrote this post. Computers are malicious little devils, and you don't want one eating up your file. Email it to yourself, put a copy on that unused old laptop you have sitting around, or even better, on a flash drive. Just keep two copies and make sure it's always backed up!

9. Ignore how far you have to go. Lock away that calculator and don't worry about how many you have to write to reach your daily quota or until you reach 50000. Just write, write, and write, as much as you possibly can!

10. Ignore your inner editor. This is often easier said than done, I know. If you go back and read what you've got, that's fine I suppose, but don't ever cut anything out! Add things in, yes, that helps tremendously, but never take anything out--that'll take away from your word count too.

11. If all else fails, add in a cliché. Make it satirical of writing if you want, that's always fun. If you're low on plot, add in a love story, or a big battle between the good buy and the villain, a quest, a monkey, a vampire, the possibilities are endless! Don't dispare over lost plot, just keep going until you find it again. There's always the plot doctoring section of the nanoforums if you get stuck.

Above all, remember: November is for writing, December is for editing (and/or burning).

NaNoWriMo Day 4

Sorry I couldn't update last night, I was on the computer without internet. So far NaNoWriMo is going pretty well, though I admit I haven't gotten much writing done for today. I've been very busy and away from my computer (either). I did however read what I have so far to my sister during a car trip and she likes it. She says I'm too wordy and that I need to use simpler terms, but my sister's not a big reader, in fact she doesn't like to read much at all.

Which reminds me, my challenge for myself during this (as if writing the novel wasn't enough of a challenge on its own) is to use as many of this semester's vocabulary words as I can. I've managed quite a few already, actually.

Just something I wanted to see when I was writing yesterday: what music I listened to while writing.
Bittersweet-Plumb; Black Horse and The Cherry Tree-KT Tunstall; Bohemian Rhapsody-Queen, It's On-Superchic[k]; Breakfast-Newsboys; Breathe Your Name-Six Pense None the Richer; Bring 'em Out-Hawk Nelson; Burn for You-Toby Mac; Burning Love-Wynonna; By Surprise-Joy Williams; California-Hawk Nelson; Candycoatedwaterdrops-Plumb; Commodity-Sarah Brendel; Concrete Angel-Martina McBride; Courage-Superchic[k]; Crazy Little Thing Called Love-Queen; Dancing Through Life-Wicked; Day by Day-Avalon; Diverse City-Toby Mac; Draw Me Close-Kutless; Endangered Love-Veggietales; Entertaining Angels-Newsboys; Route 66-John Mayer; As Long as You're Mine-Wicked; Our Town-James Taylor; Another One Bites the Dust-Queen; Other Side of the Radio-Chris Rice; Barlow Girls-Superchic[k]; Follow Your Leader-John Reuben.

I've learned I can listen to almost anything while writing, as long as I have something to listen to--and it can't be something I get really into singing like "Defying Gravity" because then I don't get anything done.
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I have 3 chapters, a prologue, and 4,419 words. Tomorrow is another long trip, which means I'll be writing long hand which I'm never as good at, and possibly that my mum will read my story (depending on who's driving of coarse).

I'll also have a non-nanowrimo post coming up soon about something that's been bugging me as of late.

NaNoWriMo Day 2 post 2

NaNoWriMo Day 2

It's day 2 of NaNoWriMo and I'm already behind (going by the 1667 words a day quota). I have 805 words as of the last count and I know what my book is about.

My characters so far:
Tara-16, blonde, green eyes
Dylan-7, brown hair, brown eyes, Tara's new stepbrother
Lydia-Tara's mother
George-Dylan's dad
Bartimus-amature alchemist/wizard, obsessed with knowledge of Tara and Dylan's world

Dares from fellow participants I've taken the initiative of taking:
Have a character always carrying a towel (a la Hitchhiker)--Done, it shall be Bartimus
"you learn more if you don't knock"--still working on incorporating
"I like you, you smell responsible"--I want so badly to use this one, still working on how though.

2529 words left today (to meet the day 2 quota), 49195 total. Wish me luck!

EDIT: At last count here at 6 pm CST, I have 1073 words. I'm past my 1000 word milestone! And the first chapter "The Ferris Wheel" is complete. Novel remains nameless.

National Novel Writing Month

Come join us in this challenge! Write a 175 pg novel in a month. It's not about quality, it's about quanity and fun. See if you can do it!