An Invitation to NaNoWriMo
Choose your own path to jumpstarting a writing routine this November!
Hello, writers!
This fall, I am running a NaNoWriMo writing workshop series at the Morse Institute Library in Natick, MA, and the Groton Public Library in Groton, MA. I have created this Substack series as a companion to those in-person workshops and as a way for friends from afar to tackle a NaNo project with a supportive community.
Why NaNo with me?
I’m the author of three novels, most recently What She Inherits (2017), which was a Honorable Mention for Mainstream Fiction in Writers’ Digest’s 25th Annual Self-Published Book Awards. My second novel, The Latecomers Fan Club, grew out of a NaNo project and went on to be named the winner for Chick Lit in the IndieReader Discovery Awards in 2014. I’ve also written two novellas and a guidebook to self-publishing, and for a number of years I was the managing editor of The Worcester Review, the annual literary magazine of The Worcester County Poetry Association.
And also I love supporting writers on their journeys!
What to expect from this Substack series?
October: Each Friday, you’ll get a post with advise of planning and preparing for NaNoWriMo.
November: Every Tuesday and Friday, you’ll get a post with a prompt to keep you going, and there’ll be a celebratory bonus post on November 30.
December: Every Friday, you’ll get a post with a revision exercise.
That adds up to 18 posts over the course of these three months as you jumpstart your writing practice and tell your story! In addition, you’ll have access to this community where you can share your thoughts in the comments and in the community chat.
Not interested in NaNo? No problem! Just visit your subscription settings and opt out of this series. You can still get my monthly newsletter, even if you opt out of these posts :)
Your first decision: How to NaNo
As a starting point for your NaNoWriMo journey, I invite you think about what you want this challenge to look like for you.
The original NaNoWriMo challenge was to write a 50K word novel in 30 days. The goal was to write a brand new story with a beginning, middle, and end. You could outline in advance, but only words written in November counted toward the goal. This is original challenge is how I completed the first draft of The Latecomers Fan Club.
And that might be the perfect challenge for you right now, or you might want to use the spirit of NaNoWriMo to jumpstart a writing habit with a slightly smaller commitment. Because let’s face it, the pace required to write 50K in 30 days is intense and can lead to burnout (for most people the 1667 words per day one must write means 1.5 to 2 hours of writing time daily), which might hurt your writing habit in the long run. As such, here are some alternatives to consider:
Instead of National Novel Writing Month, how about National Novella Writing Month? 25K in 30 days. That’s 834 words per day, and a time commitment of 45 minutes to an hour. This is the approach I took two years ago to write my novella, The Christmas Bargain.
Still sound like more than you want to tackle? Consider the word “nano” as “small.” Nano Writing Month. Take a micro approach with a goal of 300 words a day for 30 days to develop a sustainable writing habit. If you write 300 words a day for a year, you will have written a very long novel indeed, and yet 300 words a day takes most people no more than 30 minutes! I used the 300-words-a-day approach to write What She Inherits, and it worked like a charm. The beauty of aiming for a shorter challenge is that, often, you’ll exceed your daily goal without even trying!
Journaling Prompts to Help You Choose Your NaNo
Take some time to respond to the following prompts as you discern what NaNo path makes the most sense for you:
Set a timer for five minutes and write about why you want to participate in NaNoWriMo. What are your motivations? What are your desired outcomes? Write down as many reasons as you think of! Once your time has run out, look back over what you’ve written and see if you can distill it into a three-to-five word motto that you can post by your computer when you’re writing. Knowing your why can keep you going when you’re ready to give up!
What potential obstacles will you face, both internally and externally, to completing the challenge? It’s important to be realistic. Identify your obstacles and consider how you will tackle them.
What is your personal definition of success for this challenge? The best definitions of success are related to the reasons you want to take on the challenge and are about process instead of outcome. If you focus on process, your have more control over your sense of success.
Print out a November calendar and then go through and block off any known events that might make it hard for you to stick to a routine. Include things like Thanksgiving, the birthday of a child or spouse, travel plans, big work projects or obligations. Get a realistic visual of your calendar for the month to see what commitment will work in your life and block in days and times you will set aside for writing.
Share your thoughts on how you might use NaNo to give your writing habit a boost, and stay tuned for next week for some brainstorming prompts to help you plan your project!
Cheers,
Diane