Full Circle

In 2010, I attempted NaNoWriMo. I say ‘attempted’ because it resulted in a very poor attempt which you can read about below if you have such a desire. Back then, my excuse was university, work, partner, and any number of things which I felt could excuse writing 1,667 words per day. The result? About two days of writing and then nothing. But in 2013 I gave it another shot. This time I found myself between contracts, graduated from university and having just finished my last long-term goal of becoming an admitted lawyer. 

I beat the 50k goal to write 52,210 words by November's end. 

Casually reading through some of the posts before this one, I can see immediately where I went wrong. This year's competition was different for me for a number of reasons, which I will try and narrow down to just a few. These are the things I learned from NaNo 2013.

Do Not Delete

I feel this is the most important rule of all. I write at about 1000 words an hour, and that's when I get into a writing free flow. Which means every hour I spend, I get 1000 words closer to my goal. But this also means every lot of 100 words I delete sets me back six minutes. NaNo is difficult for editors, I think, because we are all perfectionists at heart. You have to be a perfectionist to want to 'fix' something that its writer thought perfectly readable. To write 50,000 words in a month, however, you need to let go of your inner critic and just accept that it is your first draft. It won't be perfect. There will be mistakes and plot holes, continuity errors and name changes. You can fix all of that once you get through the month.

For me, I had to ban myself from reading anything I had written. I still haven't read my whole story through, as I am still writing it. It was easier not to read anything, and so not be tempted into rewriting or deleting it.

Use Your Friends

And not just the ones you abandoned to hide away and write. I suppose some authors find seclusion more rewarding, without the temptation to socialise. But I say 'use your friends' in that you should be telling them, every day if you need to, about your accomplishments for the day. Facebook was instrumental in keeping me going, because I knew if I didn't make my word limit, I would have to own up to it to them. On that note, there are other 'friends' you can use who understand you more. The Sydney NaNo group was a huge part of why I managed to keep writing this year. 

Don't Write Sequentially

I was very pleased to find the Header option of Word finally came in handy. With each chapter under its own header, I was able to leap around my book and write later chapters when I got bored of earlier ones. That way my story never stalled. This was perhaps only so helpful because I began NaNo with only a vague sense of what I wanted to write. It wasn't until about a week in that I had an idea of where the story was going; two weeks before I spent one evening making a bunch of new chapter headings and summarised what happened in them, and so realised that there was no way I would fit the book into 50,000 words (much less 100,000). Chapter numbers should not hold you back either. My chapter 32 became chapter 40, while my chapter 28 dropped to 16. It was a very organic style of writing, better suited to NaNo than to writing a setting-rich book with well fleshed-out characters. I can always add the latter in later.

Coffee Shops are Sanctuaries

The Lawrence Project (Manly) where I spent
many rainy days writing on that green sofa.

I never understood the author's fascination with coffee. The late nights, surely, but I always found myself with brighter ideas early in the morning. It is said that 10–11am is the most productive time to work. This year, however, I found myself visiting a hipster joint down the road from my partner's place any time I stayed at hers. I looked forward to it. Not for the coffee, but for the empty room filled with plush chairs and no Internet access. I suppose in the same way, I enjoy buses (though not nearly as much!)

With no distractions, plentiful water and food, a soft chair and relaxing music, I probably knocked out about two fifths of my total in a single coffee shop.

Writers Have a Reservoir, and it can empty!

Finally, I learned that I cannot write unsustained for a long period of time. There came a point in writing that I felt like I had exhausted all creative potential in my mind. This wasn't just a writer's block — which I tackled with plentiful use of dream sequences and fight scenes — this was like I had tapped the last of my creativity and had nothing left. Words I wrote felt hollow. It was then I realised I had to stop and go live life a bit. One of the suggestions of NaNo is to stop reading altogether in November. Yet I found that reading a book just made me want to write my own again. Painting helped restore some colour in my mind. And exercise (just going for a walk) and sunlight seemed to refill that reservoir. 

NaNo is over for the year but I am still going. I had the opportunity to do a daily commute into and out of the city (an hour and a half trip) every day for the last two weeks. My writing has slowed a little since November ended, but I am up to 60,000 and still going!

Hopefully this will help some of you who struggled with NaNo. But in any case, you should take heart if you tried. My first time I hit 3,000. My second I hit 10,000. I figured anything over that was a win. Look at me now!