3 Things NaNoWriMo Taught Me About Writing
It’s a week after this year’s NaNoWriMo has closed out and I’ve done some reflecting on what I’ve learned after another year’s efforts to write an entire novel in thirty short, short days. To be completely accurate I should say I’ve done some reflecting on what I’ve been forced to learn after another year’s efforts. These weren’t lessons that I had to struggle to come to; these are lessons that I couldn’t ignore.
#1: If You Only Plan One Thing…
Make sure you plan your life. You can be a panster and (as the nickname alludes) write by the seat of your pants. It’s acceptable and it’s valid. If that is how you work, then by all means work that way. Or you can be a planner and work out most of the major details before you sit down to write. Either way will get you from Once Upon A Time to The End, just like some mix of the two will.
However you choose to tackle the mountainous task of weaving a narrative, above all you need to plan your life to a degree. This means having a plan for when life threatens your admittedly crazy plan to do something tremendous. If you have had much experience with attempting to stretch beyond what you thought was possible into new territory you know that the monkey wrench is inevitable. It’s non-negotiable.
Death, taxes, and monkey wrenches in your plans. Three constants. What you do about the wrench is the important part. That takes forethought or a whole lot of luck. I like to count on forethought personally.
#2: You Don’t Cook A Feast By Watching Cooking Shows
And you don’t write a book by reading about writing books… or listening to podcasts by your favorite authors… or watching interviews and videos that give you essential tips that all writers just have to have. It’s alright to get some consultations, it’s actually a really good thing. However, none of those things can replace the time spent with your butt in the chair and the pen (tablet, keyboard, whatever) in your hand. This lesson is one I struggle with because I am a consumer. I was raised in the 90s. Consuming is kind of what we learned to do and that trend has only gotten worse.
But you don’t cook a feast by watching someone else do it. You get in the kitchen, you make a mess, you taste the finished product, and then you try again. Often. Every day even, depending on how serious you take this sort of thing. I figure if you can get used to regularly writing 600 words in an hour, with about the same amount of effort that one puts into watching an hour of television (that’s 10 words a minute, so we’re talking reeeallly minimal effort right?) you can easily finish a novel in 30 days. 10 words per minute, for roughly 180 minutes out of every day. The trick is to just work on that one hour.
#3: The Sum Is Greater Than The Whole
Mastering that hour is the key to mastering writing I think. If you can focus in for an hour each day and produce 600 words (just 10 words per minute right?), you can conceivably finish a book in about 3-6 months (50k-100k words) leaving you another 6 months or so to edit it. If you approach the task of writing a book as this undertaking that requires XX amount of hours for XX amount of days to produce XXXX high-quality, immediately publishable words… well you’re setting yourself up for a rough time.
But if you can focus in on the fact that repeatedly mastering just one hour out of your day will bring you to your goal, you can accomplish some pretty amazing things.
Looking Ahead
So how can I incorporate these things into future writing. Well, personally I would benefit from treating writing the same way that I treat physical exercise. I plan ahead for it. I take it in small, deliberate steps. I know how to adapt if everything outside of lifting turns upside down. I give myself between one and two hours on the day that workout. It’s exclusive time. No phone (usually). No emails. Nothing but me, my music, and whatever’s making me sweat that day. And I do it religiously three times per week (very few exceptions).
If I can do that, it shouldn’t be too hard to carve out an hour to work on a skill that I want as a permanent addition to my repertoire. If at any time that hour seems more daunting than lifting a couple hundred pounds, I’ll know that my mental game is really lagging behind the physical.
If you’ve done NaNo before, what’ve you learned from the experience?
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3 Things NaNoWriMo Taught Me About Writing http://t.co/aRA7FH5d