Hey kids.
So I wrote a novel during November. I finished with 50,080 words, which means I won! Woo!
That said, it was not easy. In fact, I think it was probably one of the hardest things I’ve ever had to discipline myself to do, especially the times when my word count was below what it should have been. Sometimes life catches up with you. Sometimes you have a friend visiting from out of town. Sometimes you have to go work at a job and make money so you can buy coffee to keep up your writing habit. You know.
I learned a lot about myself, and about writing through NaNoWriMo, and I want to share with you my mental and physical tips for keeping your spirits up when your word count is down:
- Have lots of apples lying around the house. If you run out of apples, stop writing immediately and go get apples by any means necessary.
- Always buy coffee beans before you run out, otherwise you’ll probably die. No, I don’t mean fall asleep, I mean literally die. (No I don’t).
- Don’t ever feel bad about staying in and writing. Think of it as a free pass for you-time.
- Reward yourself for getting to a certain word count. I use the incentive of playing video games or watching anime. If you’re not a 14-year old boy at heart, perhaps reward yourself with a book, or a movie, or an album that you can write even more words to.
- Speaking of music, have a giant playlist that you can put on shuffle, and that you never get tired of. Alternatively, make lots of playlists for different moods. Also, making a playlist that goes along with the pace of your novel can keep you motivated, and at the end of your novel, you’ll have a kickass soundtrack.
- Talk about how your novel is going with friends, and be honest. If it’s not going well, let them know. They might have useful advice. Funny that!
Figuring little tricks made writing every day a lot easier, but the reality was that I had to figure out something much more critical about myself to finish. I needed to realize that I had the capability to do it, and find a way to do it. No one else could tell me how to do this, because every writer is so different. I talked to some people who would write 10,000 words in a day, and would get down on myself for only writing 2,000 in a day.
Did you just hear me? I was fucking down on myself for ONLY writing 2,000 mother-fucking words in a day. The idea is absolutely laughable, because at the heart of it all, I was producing a prolific amount of words, and on a consistent basis. Even if I hadn’t met my 50,000 word goal, I had found a way to force my brain and body to write, even when I didn’t want to.
I guess that sounds a bit like torture, but I felt more like a monk training in kung fu on top of a mountain-top monastery.
One thing I wasn’t prepared for though, was the NaNoWriMo Hangover. Nobody told me I wouldn’t know what to do AFTER I was done. The whole point was just to make it happen, and then HEY I WROTE A NOVEL. Afterward though, I ended up immediately formatting it to have people read, and then literally having nothing else to do. I didn’t want to start writing right away, because I still had cramps in my fingers from the day before, but I had the itch to keep writing. Instead of satiating that though, I played video games, and then got sick. I suddenly had no purpose in my life except to exist in a world where my novel was finished, and maybe drink some more coffee, because I had developed a healthy caffeine addiction during the month of November.
Then I realized I still had the itch. It wouldn’t go away. I still would carry around my notebook, regardless of if I actually wrote in it. I had a little more time to read now, but I still wanted to write.
HOW COULD I POSSIBLY WANT TO WRITE AFTER WRITING SO MUCH? you ask. I literally have no idea.
I think, perhaps, that this is ultimately what I was supposed to learn from NaNoWriMo though: a writing habit. After writing SO MUCH, it had become hard NOT to write.
And that’s where I’m at. Catch you later.