What I learned from National Novel Writing Month

Jan 11

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November 2008 was my first NaNoWriMo. I have written a few short stories and a couple of screenplays, but I have never attempted anything of this scale. Fifty-thousand words in 30 days. That is approximately 1,666 words per day. I used 1,700 as a guide. Hit the jump for some stats.

I met my goal 16 of the 30 days
I wrote under 1,000 words 8 times
I wrote over 2,000 words 7 times
I wrote over 3,000 words 1 time
I wrote over 4,000 words 1 time

What did I learn?

1. Be Prepared

I had an idea for a fantasy novel I’ve wanted to write since I was a kid. I had a basic plot and some developed characters already in mind.

About a month prior to NaNo I took some time to flesh out most of my characters and outlined a large portion of the novel. However, an epic fantasy has several characters and I didn’t have time to flesh them all out beforehand. It worked out OK because I didn’t waste time fleshing them out once NaNo started. I had a simple outline that started with a set of index cards listing scenes I wanted to do. They could be easily rearranged and I worked on them when I was away from my computer.

2. NaNo is all about word count

This was the hardest part for me. I like to have my characters well established and a pretty good idea where I was headed. With a rough outline you have a map to where you want to go. Getting there is another story. I had a group of dwarves warriors and didn’t have time to name them or flesh them out so I simply called them DWARF CAPTAIN, WARRIOR DWARF, DWARF KING, and so on. At this point character names don’t matter, words do. If I thought of a good name I could simply do a search and replace to fix the name. By forcing myself to move forward I actually freed myself from the words and was able to move the story more quickly.

3. Would I write this way all the time?

The pace is a bit too frantic for me, but I did learn I could write more quickly without wasting time editing as I write. If a sentence doesn’t work I use to labor over it until I got it right. I learned it is alright to keep things moving an not to sweat the small things. They can be fixed while editing.

4. Am I going to do again next year?

Maybe. I won’t lie to you it was a huge undertaking. Working full time, coaching hockey, and writing at a breakneck pace. I believe everyone should try it at least once if they can.

5. What’s next?

Script Frenzy begins in April. I am more adept at writing screenplays so 100 pages in 30 days seems less daunting even though it probably isn’t.

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