Yes, this is what I feel like. Blossom, the amazing Powerpuff Girl!
You see, I’ve been kicking ass on this year’s NaNoWriMo.
Saturday, I added up my words and found I had over 26K! And this with taking days off!
How did I do it? I have a few tips you might want to consider. Try them or not, it’s working for me.
- Don’t care about the outcome, otherwise you’ll expend good writing time on worry. You’re not in a race with other writers; you’re trying to improve the level of output.
- Likewise, as you’re writing, don’t go backwards over your words to tweak them. Tweaking/editing is done in December, after the NaNo sprint has been completed. When I’m on a roll, I won’t even use quotation marks for dialogue. Punctuation can come later.
- Instead of writing a linear story, consider writing characters. My current story has three characters, all of which will have their own voice in the novel. I’m writing each one in a separate Word file. The same event is happening to each of them, and I’m telling the story from each one’s decidedly different point of view. (Another reason to have different files for different characters – you won’t have the total word count niggling at you. You’ll have to do as I did, add up the counts once in a while. I did this with Virtually Yours – seven characters, seven files.)
- If you feel like you’re drained of inspiration, consider getting a writing prompt book to get the creative juices flowing. I am currently using Story Starters by Michelle Richmond, but any prompt book will help. This is a great book for building characters, as some of the exercises explore background without getting into back story. Everyone has a reason for doing the things they do.
- Sit down whenever you can and sprint write. You don’t need hours; every 15-20 minutes is enough, if that’s all you have.
As for me, I’m going to complete my Day Job work as quickly as I can. I have a date with NaNoWriMo and destiny.
Good luck to all of you writers, and see you at the end of the month!
