It’s First Wednesday, and that means a new Insecure Writers’ Support Group post!
This month’s question is: November is National Novel Writing Month. Have you ever participated? If not, why not?
I have been doing NaNoWriMo since 2011 and have usually managed to “win” (you don’t get any real prizes, just satisfaction at making your goal). It’s a great way to kick-start a novel. 50,000 words isn’t usually a full novel nowadays, but it’s at least halfway there (depending on your genre) and you’ve only got a little more to go to complete that book.
Writing 50,000 words in 30 days is definitely do-able if you crack down on yourself and write every day (or catch up if you miss a day). Writing just 1,667 words a day will get you there, but I usually aim for 2,000 words so I don’t have to worry about skipping a day if something comes up in real life.
The trick to “winning” NaNoWriMo is never to delete anything you write. The idea is to get a rough draft completed, and that includes anything you later decide isn’t good enough or phrased properly. If you change your mind, just bold that section or phrase and keep writing. You can come back later and delete all the bolded text. The rules say you must write 50,000 words in a month—they do not say you must write 50,000 perfect words!
If you’re thinking about participating, I hope you decide to join us. My user name on the site is velyrhorde if you’d like to be writing buddies! I’ll be working on Book 2 in my velyr chronicles while I query agents with Book 1. What will you be working on?
That is quite a helpful tip 🙂 Unfortunately, I haven’t been able to compete in a while because of writing draft after draft for the sequel of my upcoming book. Maybe I’ll be able to take part in December 🙂
You could use NaNoWriMo to write another draft for your sequel!
Good point about not deleting anything during NaNo. I do think that it works well to help those who typically can’t shut off their inner editor.
I have trouble turning off my inner editor too!!