It’s October. That means tons of writers everywhere are using the month to prepare for NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). The month were all us insane writers take the month of November and write an entire novel. I’ve attempted NaNoWriMo four year (and failed all four years, but shhhhh we aren’t going to talk about that). Two (three?) years ago I made the most progress ever on a NaNoWriMo novel and topped out two weeks with a little over 30k words. How in the world did I get so many words in just two weeks (and why did I stop? well, that is another story for another day but basically I was ready to toss my computer out the window and murder every single character, but I ended up changing projects and discovered All the Lies You Cannot Know, so it turned out to be a pretty good story. ha!)
It is my favorite-ist way of doing NaNoWriMo. The way I lovingly call . . . backwards. Backwards? Yes, backwards. Basically at the beginning of the month, when you’re excited for this project and blinded by the insanity, you write the most words. The end of the month when there’s that thing called Thanksgiving and you’re exhausted from all the words, you’re writing less.
It really is brilliant (and not original—I’m honestly not sure who the credit goes to, so if it was you, give a shout out!) And let me tell you the first couple of days cranking out 3300 and 3200 words feels oh so good.
Are you planning on doing NaNoWriMo this year (I am, but I’m doing the cheater’s way because I have a novel to finish before my beta readers *coughJaimeJoandLauriecough* hunt me down and tar and feather me)? Do you have any tips for success?
You can print the checklist above here!
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