NaNoWriMo Preptober: Final Preparation for the Big Push
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Note: This month I’m reposting my annual NaNoWriMo Preptober series. Even if you’re not doing NaNoWriMo, it’s a great way to begin thinking about any novel you plan to write!
If you’re planning to do NaNoWriMo, or any other big writing sprint, you can’t just think about the actual writing. Unless, that is, you have a bevy of servants at your beck and call, ready to bring you sustenance (and coffee!) on demand, clean your house, and guard your writing space like Cerberus.
You may have high hopes and determination to just sit down and make it happen, but a little preparation of your outer world will allow your inner world to do its thing much more smoothly.
Here are some things you may want to take care of before you start your sprint:
Your space: Do you know where you will write? Is it ready? Decluttered? Private? Do you have any notebooks, pens, inspirational quotes, or music set to go?
Your time: Do you know when you will write? If getting to 1667 words per day is going to take more time than you normally devote to writing, how will you squeeze out the extra time? For me, that would be about an hour and a half of straight writing, with no pauses for fumbling around, trying to think of what should happen next. I might plan for two hours, especially if you are a slower writer, if you want to take breaks, or if you feel you will need more time to think things through as you write. Will you need to get up earlier? Stay up later? Give up Netflix for a month? Knowing ahead of time and planning for it will be crucial to staying the course. Put your daily writing block in your calendar now.
Your food: What can you do this week to prepare for next month? Meal planning, stocking up on essential and snacks, making sure that meal prep time won’t interfere with writing time (but that you maintain good nutrition) are all important, and streamlining them could give you some precious time for writing. Ditto any other routine tasks, like making sure your pet has food, or taking care of household chores, errands, etc.
Your relationships: I’m talking your friends, your family – anyone who will be wondering what the heck you are doing when you disappear for a month. You have to let them know your writing time each day is sacred. Plan now for how you will deal with things like cooking, cleaning, laundry, and other household chores and distractions.
Also think about your social life. You may not want to bow out for a whole month, but think about it as needing to earn time for going out or doing things with friends. If you haven’t done your writing that day, do not go out anyway and think you’ll make up the word count tomorrow. You might be able to get away with that once, but make it a habit and the whole plan starts to unravel pretty quickly.
And of course, there’s Thanksgiving! Likely the most difficult day to get in your writing time. That can extend right through Sunday, especially if you are visiting family or having them over to your house. It also falls at the end of the month, which can either motivate you to push to the finish line, or derail you completely if you’re already exhausted. Again, a little planning now will help make sure you stay productive then.
Your mental game: How are you feeling right now? Excited? Nervous? Determined? Recognize that as the month goes on, your energy and enthusiasm may flag. How will you cope? Do you have friends also doing NaNoWriMo you can check in with? If not, the NaNoWriMo website has spaces for community support. Thinking ahead and planning what you will do in case of distractions, temptations, and lack of motivation will help you overcome them. You have to simultaneously keep the big picture in mind – a solid month of stretch writing goals – and take one day at a time.
If you’ve been following the plan this month, hopefully by now you are on track with developing your characters, their world, and the major plot points of the story you want to write. Normally I would say, take your time, don’t be in a rush with this process because the more you have developed before you begin, the better chance you have of writing something that will be well-structured from the get-go, with less chance of getting to the middle (or the end) and realizing you left out a crucial piece of plot or character development. However, if you’ve taken this month to do the steps I’ve outlined, you will have a strong start to your revved-up novel-writing process.
Remember, even if you are not doing NaNoWriMo, all of these steps can be a great process for planning to bang out the first draft of your novel. You may want to extend it slightly to finish a full first draft, like so:
Month 1 – Novel prep. This is where you hone your premise, characters, scenes, and world, as we’ve done this month.
Months 2 and 3 – Write the draft. 1,000 words per day could net you 60K words (or 61K, of course). 1,500 will net you 90,000 – a very respectable novel length (you may not even need that many). 2,000 will net you 120K if you’re writing a fantasy or sci-fi opus. You can fiddle around and adjust as needed. Maybe even give yourself a day off per week!
The point is, you don’t have to take years to get a first draft down. With some preparation and a determined mindset, you could get it done in 3 months (or less). I’m not saying it will be ready to send out or publish at that point, but you’ll have a solid draft you can edit. And as the saying goes, you can’t edit a blank page.
In fact, you can take advantage of that NaNo energy and get it done this year. How about it? Ready to go?
