January NaNo Wrap-up and Tips

As you may recall, I've been doing my own NaNo thing for the month of January. My goal was to write 50,000 words by the end of the month. 

As of last night, I'm at 49,181. Barring any ridiculous circumstances that would prevent me from writing only 400 words for the next two days, I think I can safely say I'm going to make my goal!

Here are a few tips that might help anyone thinking of doing something similar:

• 1613 words per day is really not that many words. On average, I'd say it took me one and a half to two hours. My preference was to spread the time out over the course of the day. The writing felt much less difficult/sloggy when I spread the time out over fifteen or twenty minute intervals. 
• Stopping when I hit the word count, even if I felt like I could go much longer, was crucial for my forward progress. It was so much easier to start my words the next time, since it wasn't hard to pick up the momentum from the day before. And this helped me avoid burnout or feeling like I needed a break between writing days.

• I'm a planner rather than a pantser, so having an outline before I started was vital. Even with my very detailed outline, there were still places I could have done better—on several days, I lost precious writing time researching or figuring out plot points I should have worked out earlier. 
• I got my friends and family on board before I started. This way everyone understood if I said I had to bow out of something because my daily target hadn't been met yet.
• The absolute best motivation for me was entering my word count into my WriteTrack counter every day and watching the graphs climb. There was one hectic day where I only managed to get to 75% of my word target for the day—and I was so upset that my pretty graph looked crappy that I worked really hard to get my numbers up again!

I'm really happy I'm on track to meet the goal I set for myself, but more importantly, writing has become a daily habit for the first time in my life. This is true to the point where I'm even contemplating maintaining my January schedule into February, at least until the first draft of this WIP is done.

If you want to make writing a daily habit too, try your own NaNo! It's easier than you think.

How to Do NaNoWriMo Any Month of the Year

Most writers have heard of NaNoWriMo, also known as National Novel Writing Month. Every year, hundreds of thousands of brave souls sign up to write a 50,000 word novel (or 50,000 words of a novel) entirely in the month of November.

This is, of course, a huge time commitment. It translates to 1667 words per day, weekends included. For those who have jobs, families, and other interests, this can be very difficult. There's a lot of frantic key pounding.

Basically, setting high targets for yourself is a way to get the words out there. True, they're probably not the greatest words ever written--in fact, they're probably bordering on crap. (See this previous post for more on why first drafts generally suck and why that's okay.) But NaNo can be an awesome kick in the pants if you're the type of writer who fears the scary blank page/screen.

But sometimes November just doesn't work. You might already be in the middle of writing another novel, or querying, or working on revisions (like I was this year). Or maybe there's something else going on in November that makes it a bad time (relatives coming for the holidays, anyone?).

It's great to have the support of all the other NaNo-ers in November, but it's important to remember that anyone can set their own goal to write 50,000 words in a month without having to base it around someone else's schedule. 

This month, I've challenged myself to write the 50,000 words I need to finish the first draft of my new YA manuscript. Since I was already 20,000 words in, this manuscript wouldn't work with the official NaNoWriMo rules--but guess what? This is my own thing, so I make the rules.

And the great thing is that I'm not the only one. I've connected with a group of people on Twitter who are all planning to finish something in January, whether that's a first draft, research, querying, or revisions. Posting goals and checking in is a great way to stay motivated. Come check it out at the hashtag #TheJanPlan if you're interested!

One thing I knew I wanted was some sort of graph to track my progress toward my word count goal. I found this great website (generously offered for free, but he welcomes donations to help defray hosting costs): http://writetrack.davidsgale.com/.

This site lets you set your word count goal first, and then you enter your daily totals to track your progress on a graph like this one:

There's even an option to note certain days you know you won't be able to get much done. The program will then redistribute the words to the other days so you have an accurate target of the daily progress you need to meet your goal.

The plan is to have a completed draft by February 1st, ready to be set aside for a few weeks and then revised. Wish me luck!