and the only prescription is all the nanowrimo advice you can find
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Here we are on day four of NaNo and I'm already falling behind on my word count. But I knew this would happen. I mean, let's face it, 10-month-old babies and long hours of uninterrupted writing time don't exactly go hand in hand. I'm not at a point in my life when I can selfishly shut the door on everything for a month. But I am writing when I can. And I am staying at least close to my goals. The gap will undoubtedly widen as the month goes on, but that's okay too. I'm writing every day. I'm making some sort of progress on a novel. Isn't that what NaNo is all about?
Also as I knew would happen, I'm struggling to keep my inner-editor at bay. Editing-as-I-go is such an entrenched habit of mine that I can't just turn it off. I have to catch myself doing it and then slap my own hand. I expect that aspect of things will get easier as the month goes on, but it'll take some time.
In addition to writing, I've also been reading, and there are a few links I want to share because they're worth a read whether you're participating in NaNo or not:
The first is a post by the extremely talented Carrie Ryan, whose brilliant and breathtaking The Forest of Hands and Teeth started as her NaNo project back in 2006. And you know what? She didn't write 50k that month. But she did write the beginning of what would turn out to be her big break. Read all about it here.
Former-awesome-lit-agent-turned-awesome-writer Nathan Bransford (whose entire blog is worth a read if you have the time, which, if you're doing NaNo, you clearly don't, but add it to your RSS and thank me later) wrote a post collecting several of his most helpful past writing posts in one place. These are must-read material if you've never written a novel before or if your novels never seem to go anywhere and you can't quite pinpoint why.
Finally, Galleycat's Jason Boog is offering up more advice than you bargained for in his post titled NaNoWriMo Tip #1: Read Two Years' Worth of Advice in a Single Post. It doesn't get much more comprehensive than that. There's a lot of content here so you might want to start by reading the first few tips when you need a writing break and then keep going back a forth. You do want to spend some of your time writing after all :) I find the best time to divert a little attention toward these NaNo tips is when I've hit a mini roadblock in my writing and I need to let the active part of my brain switch to something else for a few minutes while the back of my mind sorts out my next move writing-wise.
Well, I'm going to get back to it. If I can manage to keep the old inner-editor locked up, I might even catch up on my word count, but I'm going to be disappointed if that doesn't happen. This point is, I'm writing a book!
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| Coffee is involved for a reason. |
Also as I knew would happen, I'm struggling to keep my inner-editor at bay. Editing-as-I-go is such an entrenched habit of mine that I can't just turn it off. I have to catch myself doing it and then slap my own hand. I expect that aspect of things will get easier as the month goes on, but it'll take some time.
In addition to writing, I've also been reading, and there are a few links I want to share because they're worth a read whether you're participating in NaNo or not:
The first is a post by the extremely talented Carrie Ryan, whose brilliant and breathtaking The Forest of Hands and Teeth started as her NaNo project back in 2006. And you know what? She didn't write 50k that month. But she did write the beginning of what would turn out to be her big break. Read all about it here.
Former-awesome-lit-agent-turned-awesome-writer Nathan Bransford (whose entire blog is worth a read if you have the time, which, if you're doing NaNo, you clearly don't, but add it to your RSS and thank me later) wrote a post collecting several of his most helpful past writing posts in one place. These are must-read material if you've never written a novel before or if your novels never seem to go anywhere and you can't quite pinpoint why.
Finally, Galleycat's Jason Boog is offering up more advice than you bargained for in his post titled NaNoWriMo Tip #1: Read Two Years' Worth of Advice in a Single Post. It doesn't get much more comprehensive than that. There's a lot of content here so you might want to start by reading the first few tips when you need a writing break and then keep going back a forth. You do want to spend some of your time writing after all :) I find the best time to divert a little attention toward these NaNo tips is when I've hit a mini roadblock in my writing and I need to let the active part of my brain switch to something else for a few minutes while the back of my mind sorts out my next move writing-wise.
Well, I'm going to get back to it. If I can manage to keep the old inner-editor locked up, I might even catch up on my word count, but I'm going to be disappointed if that doesn't happen. This point is, I'm writing a book!
