Tag Archives: nanowrimo

NaNoWriMo Prep: 30 days of staying healthy

7 Replies

As a significant number of people are about to launch into the writing insanity of National Novel Writing Month, I thought I would do a post not on writing, but on health.

As someone who has been doing NaNoWriMo for a long time (over fifteen years!), I’ve learnt some hard lessons along the way. So I thought I’d wrap them up into a single post so you can learn from my mistakes rather than making them yourselves.

Preparation

 

The best way to have a comfortable and healthy month is to prepare for it. Take the time to plan your novel (if you’re a planner rather than a pantser) but also take the time to prepare your writing environment. Your wrists and neck are going to be under some strain during November, so make your set up as ergonomic as possible. If you’ve only ever written 300 words a day before, then don’t expect to write 3000 and not feel a twinge or two the following day.

Clear your calendar of other events if you can, so you don’t end up with too many competing priorities.

Diet

Writing can be an absorbing pastime. You get lost in the world you’re creating. It can be fun to get to know your characters. So much fun that you look up and it’s a lot later than you realised. Time to grab a coffee and a quick snack and keep going, right?

Wrong.

Eating a proper diet and avoiding quick and easy junk food will give you enough energy to keep going long term. Don’t make November the month of sugar highs and carb crashes. Simple, healthy meals can be planned for in advance so they don’t cut into you writing time.

Hydration

No, I don’t mean drinking endless pots of coffee. Much as I love the stuff, don’t chug it to get you through that all night writing session. Drink plenty of water and other uncaffeinated, sugar-free beverages to stay sufficiently hydrated. I’ve found this is especially important if you’re doing an early morning session as it clears the fog of sleepiness very effectively.

Sleep

Talking of sleep, make sure you get some. Finding the time to write 50,000 words means finding a lot more hours during your day. Sacrifice TV and Facebook time, not sleep. Tiredness will make the whole process of writing slower and begin a vicious cycle of struggling to hit your daily word count. Try not to deviate too much from your existing pattern and if you know that’s currently a terrible one, then don’t allow NaNo to make it worse.

Exercise and rest breaks

As well as sleep, make sure to build in some exercise time and rest breaks. Not only will your wrists appreciate it, but your eyes will too. There have also been several studies highlighting the dangers of prolonged sitting, so make sure you get up and walk around. Set a timer or alarm if you have to. It might not seem easy to stop mid-flow, but it’s better than sitting for an extended period and risking blood clots and heart attacks in later life (a bit dramatic, I know).

Mental health

Doing NaNo can be hard on your physical health, but it’s not a walk in the park for your mental health either. The pressure to finish (often self-inflicted) can lead to some serious burn out. This is often exacerbated if you haven’t done the things above to work on your physical well-being. Remember, at the end of the day, NaNoWriMo is meant to be a fun and inspiring writing experience. It’s not meant to be soul destroying. Don’t win the month, only to never want to write again.

If you start to feel upset, frustrated or unhappy, then step away from the computer. Take a break. You can come back tomorrow, the next day or not at all. It doesn’t matter. Life is too short to be made miserable by an internet competition where the only prize is to be able to say you’ve done it…

Books for writers: Shadows Beneath (Writing Excuses Anthology) review

Leave a reply

With NaNoWriMo only a week away, instead of my usual ‘book for entrepreneurs’ review, I thought I would focus specifically on a book for writers.

Most writers (aspiring and published) have read Stephen King’s On Writing. I love that book, but most of the engaging content is the autobiographical stuff, rather than the writing parts. So I thought I would take a look at a much more hands on, practical book: Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology.

The book was released in 2014 and often gets overlooked as being a short story anthology, rather than a practical guide to writing. It follows the writing process of the four main Writing Excuses hosts from story concept to finished work. Side note, if you’re a writer and haven’t checked out the Writing Excuses Podcast then go there now. It’s one of the best ‘craft’ podcasts out there in a realm of marketing ones.

The first part of the book contains the completed short stories. This means that those who aren’t interested in the writing process can just enjoy reading some quality fiction. For writers, it is the second part that is interesting: the ‘making of’ section.

For each of the stories, we can read a transcript of the Writing Excuses episode where they brainstormed ideas. For people who wonder where ideas come from, this is gold in itself. Then there is the first draft of the story, transcripts of workshopping discussions and intermittent drafts and commentaries from the authors. Finally, there is a version showing all the edits from the first draft to the published edition, full of cuts and additions.

So why read this book?

During NaNoWriMo, the idea is to take an idea and write. Write each day and get 50,000 words down by the end of the month. Editing has no place here. Often at the end, we are left with 50,000 words that need some pretty serious work. Shadows Beneath is a great way to see that even without these crazy time pressures, the first draft is never perfect. It can be hard to imagine that our favourite, successful authors struggle to write a first draft and that it often doesn’t work. It can be hard to believe they reach out to others and say ‘hey, I’m struggling with this and could use some help’. This book will teach lessons in craft and development, but it also shows the spirit of community and encouragement.

Which, when you think about it, has always been at the heart of NaNoWriMo.

You can buy Shadows Beneath: The Writing Excuses Anthology here. If you can, I’d recommend getting the print edition, as it allows you to flip back and forth much easier when following the revision process.

The importance of finding peace

Leave a reply

Saying things have been crazy lately is an understatement. I know everyone in today’s world feels overwhelmingly busy most of the time. I’ve spent years putting systems in place to allow me to manage multiple products and still be uber-productive, but even I have had several moments of complete overload. I already know my yearly review of 2015 will be quite something.

Even my morning journalling, a time solely dedicated for quiet reflection, has been interrupted by a compulsion to check my phone, having random ideas that need capturing elsewhere and, quite frankly, the fidgetiness of a five year old.

It kind of defeats the point.

But the absence of peace and stillness has made me realise how important it has become to me. Not to sound like some hippy white person trying to be an eastern self-styled guru, but there is so much to be said for the practices of mindfulness and gratitude. Of just being in the moment and being part of the world around you. Of being able to appreciate an autumn sunset, rather than just whizzing past it on your way to somewhere else.

Lake Windermere

It has been manic, and there is more to come. Nanowrimo is coming up and I have six days to complete it in. This is not one of my crazy, self-imposed deadlines and I’m certainly not going to try and beat last year’s three day completion, but I won’t actually have access to my computer from day seven. So it’s either type or fail and I’m not the kind of person who relishes failure.

But it seems to me that in order to keep moving forwards, one needs to be intentional about standing still. About appreciating where you are and where you are going rather than just charging forward blindly. Life is about progress, but not necessarily about speed.

It will be over before you want it to be anyway, so don’t rush to a final location that may not really be where you ever dreamed you would go.

Writing Goals 2015

3 Replies

This post is about writing goals, but it really can (and should) apply to any area of your life.

We’re a week into 2015 which means, according to the stats, that as many as 75% of you are still on track. Awesome. However, the stats also say that the number of us still sticking to those resolutions by the end of the month is going to nosedive like lemmings off a cliff. Less awesome.

My writing goals, along with my goals in other life areas, were not randomly plucked out of the air on New Years Day. I spent some quality time in December looking back over what I’ve achieved in the past year and where I went horribly derailed despite my best intentions. Live and learn people, live and learn.

Achieving goals is something I’ve come to realise is largely down to habits. Good habits specifically, like getting up at 6am to write, which I’ve been doing for about four years now. Understanding the bigger picture in working your way towards success takes more than just an hour of ‘I wish’. It also requires being brave. So, putting my big girl pants on, my goals are:

  • Submit, submit, submit, even when the rejections become demoralising
  • Self-publish 2 novels as my alter-ego
  • Finish writing the novel I’m halfway through
  • Write 2 new full length stories
  • Finish NaNoWriMo in a week (doing it in 3 days this year was astounding, but it damn near finished me off)
  • Keep this blog going for another year

There, that’s my caring and sharing done. It seems a lot, seeing it written there for all the world to see, but possible. Not easy, but all research indicates that goals should stretch you a little, even if that means they scare you a little too.

I’ve broken them down into monthly and weekly goals, so I can take baby steps. The monthly goals are written on an index card and blue-tacked above my desk, where they shout at my face all day long to remind me. At the end of the month, I’ll be able to see in black and white whether or not I’m on track.

So, without further ado, I’d better head off now and make some progress on one of them.

Perhaps after another cup of coffee…

When you get up in the morning, choose YOU

When you get up in the morning, choose YOU

NaNoWriMo – Head Down, Keep Going

Leave a reply

For a lot of people still chugging away at NanoWrimo, this is the hard part. So I just wanted to write a very quick post of encouragement for those who are starting to believe the finish line will never arrive.

For those of you who have only written a thousand words every day – you are awesome. You have taken the time to write consistently and that is something that most people really struggle to do. Even if by the end of Nano that means you’ve only written 30,000 words, then who cares? You’ve still achieved and that is a great thing, even if November 30th appears and you’re still slogging away.

Or as Douglas Adams puts it:

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound they make as they fly by.

nanowrimo-logo

There will be some people who did great in the beginning then had a few rough days and now want to give up. That is completely understandable. Bad days can knock your motivation, enthusiasm and self-belief. Now is the time to stand up, try on your superhero pose and start again. Take anything, a line, a scene, an interesting character, and start writing. The beauty of Nano is that it doesn’t have to be perfect. Or even averagely good. It just needs to be written down and out of your brain.

For everyone else at all stages in between, the advice is the same. Keep going. The sense of satisfaction at seeing that progress bar hit the 50k for the first time is quite memorable. You might even find that you want to keep going when it is done. There are an increasing number of published novels out there that were NanoWrimo monsters to begin with, which is something to keep in mind.

Remember:

If you can tell stories, create characters, devise incidents, and have sincerity and passion, it doesn’t matter a damn how you write.
– Somerset Maugham

Now, go do it!

 

So, what does it mean to Write Foxy?

Leave a reply

On Sunday I was fortunate enough to attend Miranda Dickinson’s Write Foxy event, which was jam packed with some amazing guest speakers.

So what does it mean to Write Foxy? It does not mean you are limiting yourself to the topic of elusive woodland creatures. And although all of the speakers were female and Miranda is well known as a Romantic Comedy author, this was not a day exclusively for those who want to write ‘chicklit’. The whole day was genre unspecific and for those at any level of writing experience. To Write Foxy is to take back the passion of writing and do what you really love. A day legitimately and wholly devoted to the writing experience.

WriteFoxy

 

For me, there were several highlights and key moments in the day. The first was being completely vindicated by Hannah Beckerman (The Dead Wife’s Handbook) when it comes to planning. People always seem a bit suspicious of my level of planning, as though it somehow equates to a lack of creativity. Hannah was great at explaining how developing a strong structure in advance can actually create a sense of freedom when it comes to writing. There are no moments of panic when you feel like you are fumbling in a blind alley towards your ending. No sitting, staring at the blank screen waiting for the muse to appear. But nor is it so set in stone that there is no choice but to follow your original plan relentlessly. I couldn’t have completed NaNoWriMo in 3 days without a plan, that’s for sure.

Dead Wife

The aha! moment for the day came from Cally Taylor (Home For Christmas, The Accident) who tackled the topic of editing. Or, as I like to call it, my nemesis. I realised that although I am meticulous in my planning, and my life in general, I have no such approach when it comes to editing. Instead, I get out a red pen and plod through the thankless task. No wonder I always get distracted by writing something new and shiny instead. Cally showed us a way of approaching editing that has given me a whole new perspective on getting from that first draft to a polished manuscript, without it feeling like pulling teeth. As my goal for 2015 is to actually do something with this fort of stories I’ve been building around myself, I feel like I now have a framework to help me learn to enjoy the task as a part of the writing process itself.

The Accident

The unexpected laugh out loud moments came courtesy of Tamsyn Murray (Stunt Bunny, My So-Called Afterlife), who explained the three act structure to us in a way that was better than any of my English teachers ever did. Or maybe her choice of a well known children’s book as an example was just aiming it at my mental level… Now I’m re-reading this and wondering if I’ve managed to do it with this post (the piece of training documentation I wrote for work the other day though is something Aristotle himself would be proud of. Isn’t that what people mean by work-life balance?)

so called afterlife

To round off the day, Miranda Dickinson (Take A Look At Me Now, and the soon to be published I’ll Take New York) gave everyone a timely reminder that for everyone there, no matter what they wrote, where they wrote, or how much they wrote, the whole point was still to have fun. To really love what you write and, more importantly, to give yourself the freedom to do so without guilt. Writing is a solitary process to begin with and hard to explain to friends and family without sounding like, well, a bit of a nutter really. I’m lucky that everyone I know has just accepted that I’m a nutter anyway and the whole writing thing is now quite incidental to that fact. But, despite the fact I don’t have anything traditionally published yet, I do now call myself a writer and say it like I mean it. For that, I will be forever grateful to Miranda for being a champion of the generosity mindset and always extending a hand down to help those on the way up.

It is something I hope to be in a position to do myself one day.

Take New York

There are still tickets available for the February Write Foxy day, so if you’re free and want to start taking your writing seriously (or if you already do and want access to a whole load of additional tips and tricks) then you should check it out here. Plus, if I haven’t sold it to you, there will also be free goodies and oodles of cake. Writing events should always be this well catered….

WriteFoxy

5 Reasons why I’ll be using Scrivener for NanoWrimo

4 Replies

Earlier this week, I read the bravely titled Why I Will Never Use Microsoft Word Again by the mighty Jeff Goins. People I know say that phrase all the time out loud, but few people in positions of influence in the writing world would commit it so defiantly to screen. Yet, as soon as I read the title I was nodding, partially because I already suspected what the solution would be.

The world at large has not yet moved on from Microsoft Word and I suspect it won’t for a while yet. Submissions, anything for the day job – Microsoft Word is the only accepted choice. Even with the huge increase in popularity of Apple products there has been very little give, with an emphasis instead on better conversion technology.

But when it comes to my writing, Scrivener is my tool of choice. For those of you doing NanoWrimo this year who have never tried it, there is a free trial on their website, available for both windows and mac.

But Scrivener is not just for fiction. I think that is a common misconception. Any piece of writing that requires more than a couple of sides of A4 plain text will benefit from it’s functionality. With that in mind, here’s why I’ll be using it for NanoWrimo.

Planning Tools

You can’t write a word of your novel itself before midnight, but there are no rules about pre-writing for Nano. In fact, I would positively encourage anyone trying it for the first time to do as much pre-writing as possible. Scrivener has the best outlining tool I’ve ever come across, and the cork board allows you to visually play with concepts, themes and characters in a way that is impossible on a  piece of simple word processing software.

feature-corkboard

Name Generator

This is almost an afterthought for some people, but it has saved my bacon at 6am more than once. It’s amazing for those times when an incidental character turns up. You know the sort, the ones where you need them for a plot point but they don’t come with a back story or enough of a personality in your brain to instinctively know they are called Bob. The name generator tool can do either first names or both, with cultural, gender and language options if you need to narrow it down to something more specific. Don’t let trying to work it out derail your writing flow any longer.

Templates

Again, another key pre-writing feature that it just awesome. Scrivener comes with pre-developed templates for characters and settings, so you can keep track of the key details (nothing like your protagonist changing eye colour halfway through the book is there?). You can attach images and web content in Scrivener too, so keeping it all in one place is easy. What’s more, you can customise it so you can create your own templates. I’m trying my hand at an epic fantasy for Nano this year, so I have a template for my magic systems to make sure they balance each other out and the complicated details don’t get lost. One click and I can easily reference back, rather than having to search through an entire document to find a tiny but suddenly important detail.

Formatting and Fonts

Let’s face it, Word has become more and more complex. Whilst powerful functionality is good, it gets lost in amongst the everyday, and for most people, they never use any of it anyway. When writing a long document (again, regardless of fact or fiction), the key is to get quality content in place, not to be able to provide fourteen different types of shadowing to your title. I like the fact that Scrivener places the basic, everyday options up front and centre, with much of the formatting and additional functionality happening in the background. Instead the screen is taken up with the elements you need to keep your eye on, such as the binder on the left so you can see where you are in the grand scheme of things, and the synopsis notes on the right so you can drill down into the specifics of your current chapter. I love that my screen isn’t mainly wasted space.

write_structure_revise

Project Targets

Again, a relatively small tool, but the one thing I love the most. The project target box sits happily in the corner of the screen, allowing me to see my daily word target, as well as the overall progress based on my estimates of the total length, and the countdown to deadline. The target can even dynamically change if the deadline is the key element, so if you have a day off, Scrivener reminds you that you have to put in the extra words over the life of the project. Simple, but oh so effective at 6am when you’re trying to do 1000 words before the rest of the world wakes up.

feature-statistics

Having started this whole thing by saying that everyone still uses Microsoft Word, it would be foolish of me to push something that then had no application in the real world. I’ve written 6 full length novels in Scrivener now and exported them all successfully to either Word, ePub or Kindle formats. Likewise, if you’ve already done some of your project in a different format, you can import into Scrivener if you want to give it a go.

So that’s why I always use – and will continue to use – Scrivener for all my writing projects, not just for NanoWrimo. Check it out and let me know what you think.

All images courtesy of literatureandlatte

How to survive NanoWrimo

2 Replies

Have you signed yourself up for NanoWrimo? If you have, then well done. Pat yourself on the back and prepare for some hard work. But hopefully you’ll find it a lot of fun too.

I am something of a Nano veteran. I did my first one a very long time ago (2001 I think) and have only missed two years since, both of which were due to being out of the country for the entirety of the month. For me, I love the challenge. My daily writing habit already has me at a minimum of 1000 words before breakfast, so Nano doesn’t step it up that much of a notch for me.

Which is why I do NanoWrimo hardcore.

The first attempt, due to my super competitive nature, I completed in two weeks, rather than the whole month. Every year since then, I’ve tried to shave a day off. Sometimes I fail, sometimes I succeed. But my goal now is to do it in a week. I’ve achieved that twice; both times whilst holding down a full time (and fairly hour intensive) job.

This year I will have no choice. Due to other commitments, I only have the first seven days when I can write, so it is make or break. Two of those days will include commutes to other parts of the country. Fun times and the fast track to a mental breakdown. So how do you survive NanoWrimo?

nanowrimo-logo

Be honest with yourself

If you’re planning to do NanoWrimo over 30 days like a normal, sane person, then you need to be honest with yourself about your other commitments for the month. Know that you have a friend’s birthday one of the Fridays and that’s your best writing time? Take that day out and recalculate your overall word count. It might mean that on the days you are writing you have to do 3000 words instead, but at least you’ll know. Otherwise, you get to the last week and see that you have an almighty push to try to make it.

Don’t start on the back foot

NanoWrimo doesn’t always start on the most convenient day. Depending on what is going on in your life, then it may clash with a multitude of other commitments. Know this, and still set aside the time to write on day one. There is nothing more disheartening than going in on day three and seeing everyone’s word counts roaring off into the distance in a cloud of dust. Start. Like anything in life, that is the most important step.

Don’t edit

I know this is the whole point of NanoWrimo, but it is worth repeating. Don’t know if your clear blue sea is turquoise or aqua marine? Who cares? Don’t waste a few minutes googling colour palettes to see which one is the closest to the image in your mind’s eye. Add all those little distractions and your writing will slow way down. These things do not matter in a first draft.

Have a plan

Plotting prior to 1st November is completely within the rules. If this is your first time doing NanoWrimo, or sustained writing in general, it might seem enough to have a great character or idea. Trust me, when it’s after midnight and you still have 500 words before you hit your word count, then it won’t be. If you enjoy writing on the fly, then I’m not suggesting you pin down every chapter in excruciating detail. I would simply suggest having at least 5 key plot points written down and know where they fit in your overall story arc. That way, you’ll always have something to be working towards when the words start to dry up.

Be kind to your body

For many people, NanoWrimo is their first attempt at consistent writing. It is awesome for that. It also means sitting for a long time. Be sensible. Make sure your back and wrists are getting the support they need. It’s meant to be fun, not a quick route to a lifetime of pins and needles in your extremities.

Have fun

Yes, that’s my final point. Enjoy it. Even though I go crazy and it can be a special type of self-inflicted stress, I love every minute of it.

Good luck! More importantly, just keep going!

nanowrimo-logo