Wordsmith Wednesday: Get Ready for NaNoWriMo

"NaNoWriMo"? What is that, something Mork had for breakfast? Or something he and Mindy did on their honeymoon? In fact, "NaNoWriMo" is "short" (how about if we stick to NaNo from here on out?) for National Novel Writing Month. Some of my blogging friends are planning to write a 50,000 word novel during November; others will be in support roles for those writers. (I’m in the latter category, for those of you keeping score.)

Listen to Bre and Tami discuss NaNo on the Saucy Wenches Podcast

To learn more about NaNo, you may either click the link above, or better yet, listen to Bre and Tami describe and discuss NaNo on their latest Saucy Wenches podcast. (Of course, you should listen to the Saucy Wenches anyway, because they are just that good, and I don’t say that simply because they are very good friends, or because they invited me to a guest appearance on the show in December. Ahem…moving on now…)

In their latest podcast, the Saucy Wenches talk about using this month, October, to get ready for NaNo. They include things as letting your family know of your endeavor, to elicit both support and understanding, when hot dogs and mac’n'cheese are the staples for dinner throughout November. (I dunno what happens on Thanksgiving, which falls right smack in the middle of crunch time!) The ladies also advise getting at least one person to be your NaNo conscience, to prod you each day to produce the roughly 1700 words it will take each day to hit the 50K goal.

If you’re planning on doing NaNo, and you are waiting for November 1 before you get started, you’re already way behind the 8-ball. I’m not sure 17 days will be enough time for you to get ready, but here are some things you must do to be successful.

First, do you have any idea what your novel is about? By now, you should have a rough idea of how the novel starts, a couple main scenes, what the primary conflict is, and how your book will end.

November 1 is too late to plan your novel

Second, who is going to star in your opus? Who are your main characters? Are you going to narrate in first or third person? If the latter, from whose point(s) of view? If you think you can wait until you actually put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard, more likely), you might want to consider waiting until 2010 NaNo. Seriously.

Let me tell you a quick story: I had this great scene in my mind (from a dream, no less), and it was so lucid, so detailed, I thought I could write a novel, or at least a short story, around it. So I started writing. Characters were easy. The opening scene was easy. I even knew where I wanted to be in three or four chapters, and I had an idea of how the story might end. Unfortunately, I did no planning. I did no outlining. And that story is still stuck on the first scene, because I couldn’t be bothered to figure out how to get from point A to point B (almost literally: I had to get the characters from inside to outside, and make it work). Sounds simple, but without a plan on how to implement your idea, you will NOT get past the "I have a great idea for a book!" stage.

As Bre and Tami mention in their podcast, the actual process of writing is not easy either. They make a very big point that during November, all you want to do is write. No editing, no revising, no multiple drafts: You simply do not have time (unless your name is Isaac Asimov, and it isn’t, because he’s dead).

Many of you will be using Word or other word-processing software to produce your novel. Keep in mind during NaNo, your objective is simply to produce words–lots of them–rather than process them. So here are some suggestions to minimize the distractions your software can present. Do these NOW, not in November!

Turn off spell check and grammar correction!

• Turn off Spell Check. November is not the time to be distracted by squiggly red lines all over the place. If your typing/spelling is so bad you won’t be able to decipher your work later, use Word’s auto-correct feature to add all the words you typically mistype or misspell. Fill that database up! For example, auto-correct "teh" to "the." (Actually, I think that’s built in, but you should get the idea.)

• Turn off Grammar Correction. As if those red squiggles aren’t enough, the blue/green ones drive me batty. Besides, you’re writing a novel, not a textbook. A lot of the suggestions Word makes simply don’t make sense for fiction writing. And in case I haven’t made the point yet, this is not the time to act as your own copyeditor.

Want to really go old school? There are several programs out there (and I think you can do it in Word, but I’m not certain) that will simply put text on the screen. In other words, "typewriter mode." I am aware of several for the Mac; I’m sure there are others out there for Windows machines as well. Lifehacker recently highlighted a method for distraction-free writing in Google Docs. For those of you who will be using any collaboration at all, or even if you are flying solo, this could be the way to go. This article also includes links to other ideas for reducing clutter in your word-processing application, so it’s worth a look just for those links.

Finally, one last tip. I have said, at least a couple times, that December is when you want to revise, rewrite, edit, fix, do whatever with your Great American Novel. So put something on your Christmas list to help you do this: A brand-spanking-new copy of Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Dictionary, 11th Edition (MW11 or Web11, as it’s known in the publishing world). At almost every publishing house in the United States, Web11 is the definitive resource for word use. If you’re a writer, I submit it’s ten times more important than Strunk & White or the AP Stylebook or Chicago Manual of Style.

What are your plans for NaNo? What else are you doing to prepare this month, for next month? Comments are open!

Tagged as: NaNoWriMo, Wordsmith Wednesday