NaNoWriMo is just a few days away, but many people are still trying to decide if this international, novel-writing frenzy is really worth the effort. That’s why I decided to share some tips and ideas of how you can make NaNoWriMo work for you, so you can take advantage of all the positive energy from this global literary party.
What is NaNoWriMo?
For those who don’t know, NaNoWriMo stands for National Novel Writing Month and it is always in the month of November. During this month, writers are challenged to write an entire 50,000-word novel, by writing 1667 words a day for thirty days. NaNoWriMo was founded way back in 1999 by a group of writers in California and has since morphed into an international writing event and organization. It’s absolutely free to do, many famous authors have admitted that the first draft of their published masterpieces started as NaNoWriMo projects, and the camaraderie gained by writing in concert with thousands of other people around the world is life-giving. Best of all, on December 1, you have a freaking book in your hands!
Why is NaNoWriMo Bad?
Some people view NaNoWriMo as a gimmick that simply fosters bad writing. Moreover, they say it gives people false hope that writing a good novel can be done in a month. And while the goal of the program is to write fast and finish a manuscript in 30 days, there is an assumption that what gets written is a draft, not a novel ready for publication. Personally, I don’t think NaNoWrimo is a bad idea, I just think that writers have to have reasonable expectations going into November about what they can realistically accomplish.
The fact is, with the right goals and a little tweaking, you can make NaNoWriMo work for you.
Five Ways to Make NaNoWriMo Work for You
There are no judges or referees checking your NaNoWriMo work, so there’s no reason why you can’t adjust the rules to make NaNoWriMo work for you wherever you are in your writing journey. Here are five ways to tweak NaNoWriMo so you can still take part in the challenge and make progress on your literary work.
Use NaNowriMo to Outline your Novel
If the idea of churning out an entire novel in 30 days is overwhelming, but you have an idea for a novel that you’d like to work on, use NaNoWriMo to write a comprehensive outline for your book. You could outline a chapter a day, or chapter a week. The outline could include character sketches and backstories as well. That way, at the end of November, you don’t have a novel written, but you have the blueprint for your novel written and you can then get to work writing at your own pace in December and beyond. I actually did that for my first novel, Substitute Me. And the outline made writing the novel super easy.
Use NaNoWriMo to Revise a WIP
Remember, the idea behind NaNoWriMo is to get people in their writing chair every day and to have something to show for it by the end of November. If you already have a draft of your novel written, consider using NaNoWriMo to revise the full manuscript. That would be 30 days of revision. Break the project down by the number of pages or word-count you have and divide by 30. And voila, you’re at Draft Two or Three by December 1!
Write a Memoir Instead of a Novel
I mean nobody said it had to be a novel.
Adjust the Numbers
Maybe you’re trying to write an epic novel, a story that rivals Tolstoy’s Anna Karenina or Alex Haley’s Roots, so 50,000 words isn’t going to cut it. Give yourself another number to shoot for. Can you write 80,000 words in 30 days? Or maybe you want to shoot for just 25,000 words. You want to be halfway done with the novel at the end of November and you’ll finish in December. The numbers aren’t the most important thing. It’s having a writing goal, making yourself do the work every single day, and having a finished product you’ll be proud of at the end.
Deep Dive into Backstory
Many times writers end up cutting out half of their manuscripts because they spend too much time writing backstory into their novel. The backstory is important for the writer to know, but ultimately, it bogs you story down and you have to scrap it. So, consider using NaNoWriMo to get to know your characters. Write out their backstories and physical descriptions. Give them playlists and figure out when they had their first kiss. Then maybe take some time figuring out where they live and what the sidewalk looks like outside their homes. You can use the NaNoWriMo month to get really familiar with the world where your story will take place and get really cozy with your characters. When NaNoWriMo is done, 
youl’ll be more than ready to start writing your novel.
Is NaNoWriMo Worth It?
At the end of the day, if you can make NaNoWriMo work for you, wherever you are in the writing process, then it’s definitely worth it.
There are no hard and fast rules, so you can take the spirt of the assignment – write like crazy for 30 days in November – and make it work for you.
The benefits are the built in pep talks, the high-spirted community of like-minded writers, and the satisfaction of being a one step closer to achieving your literary goals. Also, it’s just a whole lot of fun.
If you have an idea for a novel, or you’re somewhere in the process of writing a novel, I say find a way to make NaNoWriMo work for you. I want to hear all about it.
