Here’s the third episode of the Writing Talk Podcast.
In this episode of the Writing Talk Podcast I ask whether you should plunge headlong into NaNoWriMo and look at some tips that will help you get your head around some of the challenges involved.
Yes, it’s that time of year when many brave souls tackle a novel in November – presumably because they both begin with N. But should you take part? And if you do, how will you tackle the challenge of banging away a whole novel in one month?
Listen away for some tips and other writing talk. By the way, this episode was recorded with me standing up – can you tell?
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Action Points
Evaluate your goals for November
Does NaNoWriMo fit in with your existing writing schedule? If not, consider very carefully if you have time to take part. if it means abandoning an ongoing project, then ask yourself if you can really afford the interruption.
Centralise your planning
See if you can organise your planning notes and documents into a centralised place e.g. google docs, dropbox, onedrive. This way you can work on them wherever you are. Keep it simple though – sometimes desktop programs have errors when synchronising so always keep backups.
Mentioned in the show:
The Collective SciFi – get 5 free books when you sign up for the newsletter: http://thecollectivescifi.com/
Links to Writing Resources:
NaNoWriMo sponsor offers: http://nanowrimo.org/sponsor-offers
Aeon Timeline software: Use the coupon code NANO2015 to get your 20% discount now.
Scrivener
The 30 day free trial is perfect for NaNoWriMo
Both are affiliate links – they don’t cost you anything at all but I get a reward from the company to help pay for the podcast hosting.
Questions
What’s your NaNoWriMo experience so far? Tell us how it’s going.
Do you have any tips to share for NaNoWriMo?
Please answer in the comments below:
Thank you for the encouragement in this podcast! As a new writer I find myself looking for two things, one is practical advice, the other is encouragement to keep going. You gave me both in this episode. 🙂
I know it’s a bit late to give our own tips for the NaNoWriMo progress…. I’d still like to share something that really helped me. First off, this was my first NaNoWriMo experience. I’ve never written a novel, not even a short story in my life. So I was really nervous about the challenge. So I decided to carve up my writing into three daily time slots. The first slot was between 6 and 7 am. That gave me about 400 words of completed material before the day began. The second slot was over the lunch hour, that added another 400 or so words. Then when I got home, about half of the day’s words were already completed! Using that approach, I got to 50k words by Nov. 23, well ahead of the deadline.
I found during this whole adventure that I never really could “turn my inner editor off”. I know everyone says you have to do that. But I couldn’t bring myself to vomit forth words onto a blank page, thinking that I’ll clean up the mess later. That’s probably because I had spent several months learning how to write by reading books about writing, or listening to youtube and podcasts episodes like this one, but I’d never actually written much myself. So my major concern was that I would learn bad habits by forcing myself to write quickly, rather than trying to write well. Yeah, that’s a deadly concern to have going into a NaNoWriMo experience. In any case, I did finish in time, but I spent much more time doing it. Also, I didn’t skip any day, so I never got behind. That helped a lot.
Thanks for taking the time Stephen. It’s great to hear your experience and I’m very pleased you feel encouraged. Keep tapping away.