Nanowrimo check-in – Day 2

The setup for NaNoWriMo at home, if I need to ...I won’t be posting every day – that’s a bit too much to maintain, especially once the work week gets going again. Having gotten in my required* words for the first two days, I thought I’d post some advice and a small progress report (graphic at the bottom). Past experiments in writing streaks have taught me a few things that I think will make this NanoWriMo all the easier to accomplish. And hey, why not learn from my past pains? 🙂

Don’t overdo it

This is one of those rules that’s not a rule but more of a general, gentle reminder. You don’t have to get everything out of your head on the first go. In fact, its sometimes better to stop when you feel comfortable and let the rest stew in your head for a bit. This rule is also the one that is easiest to break and ignore, because sometimes you find yourself on just a really good streak – go for it.

There will still be more tomorrow

I used to worry that if I typed everything I wanted for a scene today, then I wouldn’t have anything to write tomorrow – a real concern, especially if you are a pantser like myself. Don’t worry about it. I like to think of it as making room for tomorrow’s writing – in the end, I have found that when I’m working on a story there’s always something more to say the next day even if I don’t know what it is yet.

Any amount of writing counts

NanoWriMo is a competition. Its a contest. Its a challenge.

It’s not real.

If you’ve set yourself a daily word goal and you don’t make it – oh well. There are going to be days where it is a struggle to put down 10 words. They are the balance for the days where you put down five thousand words.

Get a friend, even if its just me

This isn’t about competitive nature, though it can be. This is just as much about having a partner in crime or someone that acts as an inspiring reminder to write. As a species, even introverts like to belong to a community. Communities don’t have to be bound by region or location. If you’re participating in NanoWriMo, feel free to add me a writing buddy – I’d love to see how others are doing. http://nanowrimo.org/participants/mcummings

 

 

* Obviously, nothing is required – this is all voluntary. In order to make it to 50,000 words in a month, though, you need to be able to average about 1666 words a day. That’s all 🙂