So You Want To Be a Writer - Part 1 - 8 Tips for NaNoWriMo
(This is the first of a three-part series this week in how to become a Real Writer.)
With NaNoWriMo 2013 kicking off this week, I thought it appropriate to throw in my two cents about what it means to be a writer. NaNoWriMo is a great vehicle for getting people off their literary asses and at the keyboard mashing out words. I participated in the Great Writing Marathon for the first time in 2008, penning the framework for my novel Red Awakening, which is due for release this week. Make no mistake, however; the 55,000 words I ended up with on November 30 of that year was NOT the novel that is being published. Maybe 20,000 words of that exercise remains, along with the main character, but that’s it. That being said, here are eight tips to keep in mind for NaNoWriMo.
1. 50,000 words is NOT a novel (see above and below). Hell, most real writers can crank out 50,000 words in a weekend. 35,000 of them will be crap, but that’s beside the point. This blog post is nearly 1300 words and I wrote it in under an hour. To reach 50,000 words, you need to write 1667 words a day, every day, for 30 days. The point of NaNoWriMo is teaching your writing muscles to write.
2. To quote the venerable Yoda: “There is no try, there is only do.” It amazes me, listening to people before NaNoWriMo begins, how many of them say they hope they can finish. Have you ever heard a marathon runner say they hope they can finish? No. No one who expects to win says they hope they can finish. You either plan to finish or you stay on the sidelines. You want to play with the big boys, then pull on your big boy pants, roll up your sleeves, sit your butt down in that chair and write. Write till your fingers bleed. Write till your brain starts leaking out your ears.
Okay, maybe that’s a little extreme, but you get my meaning. Whatever reason you tell yourself or others about your decision to participate in NaNoWriMo, it really boils down to this: somewhere deep down inside, you fancy yourself a writer. No one takes on a challenge like this on a whim. No one says, “I’m bored, I think I’ll do NaNoWriMo because it looks like fun.” Excuse my French, but bullshit. If that’s what you're doing, stop wasting everyone’s time and go back to your tweeting and texting. This is a serious challenge for serious people. Doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, but dammit, do it while writing. And if my saying that makes you mad, then good. Use that anger in your writing.
3. That 50,000 words you need to win? They’re just words. They don’t have to be perfect, they don’t have to be spelled correctly or written in the Queen’s English or hell, even make sense. Just WRITE them. Got an idea about something in your character’s past? Write it down. Think about a scene that happened before the book’s events? Write it down. Wonder what that guy across the street is doing on his roof? You guessed it–write it down.
See, the point of this whole exercise is it IS an exercise. It’s creating muscle memory in your brain to write, so that when you sit down at the keyboard, you know what to do without thinking about it. You think an athlete wonders which foot to put in front of the other when he takes off across that field? No, he just runs because that’s what he has trained to do. Be a writing athlete.
4. Conquer that mental 50,000 word barrier. To a wannabe writer, 50,000 words sounds like a lot. But think about this: the typical novel is 80,000-100,000 words, which means a writer will actually write any where from 110,000 to 130,000 words to get it. That’s taking into account editing, rewrites, etc. And most published authors write two, sometimes three books a year. So for a real writer–if that’s what you want to be–50,000 words is...meh.
5. DON’T EDIT. I cannot stress this enough, so I’ll say it again. DON’T EDIT. Also, don’t rewrite. Don’t correct spelling. Don’t worry about punctuation or consistency or tense or voice or any of those things you’ll do when you actually get around to writing A NOVEL. In fact, don’t even go back and read what you wrote. Just keep going. Pretend there’s a brain-eating zombie chasing you and the only way to outrun it is to keep writing. Don’t look back, don’t stop to tie your shoe, don’t hit the delete or backspace key. Just WRITE.
6. This may sound like I’m repeating myself, but that’s only because I am. There is one truth you have to keep in mind for NaNoWriMo: just because the title of this exercise has Novel in it, don’t make the mistake of thinking that what you’re writing here is really a novel. This is a 50,000 word brain push-up-synopsis-character sketch-outline. Just like a photographer who takes 100 pictures to get one good one, you’re going to write 50,000 words to get 20,000 usable ones. And that’s if you’re lucky. Don’t like those odds? Get over it.
7. This one always makes me laugh–I call it The Veteran NaNoWriMo Participant. Now, I’m going to be generous here and assume there are actually people out there who approach NaNoWriMo as a fun-filled challenge they participate in every year for the hell of it. Sometimes they win, sometimes they choke. But not once, in all their years of climbing onboard the NaNoWriMo train, do they ever take the next step and actually turn that 50,000 word exercise into a finished, much less publishable novel. I spoke to woman several years ago who said she has “written” twenty 50K word novels. I didn’t even know how to respond to that.
At the risk of beating a dead horse (and yes, I am aware that poor horse is starting to look like hamburger), 50,000 words is NOT A NOVEL. And the 50,000 words you crank out during NaNoWriMo is in no way, shape, or form even close to resembling a novella, much less a novel. At best, it’s the beginning of a first draft. More likely, it’s a collection of random garbage with a couple of words that might, with a lot of hard work and dedication, become the basis of something worth reading. Harsh, I know. The truth hurts, which, if you want to be a writer, is something you’re going to have to learn to swallow because WRITING IS HARD WORK.
8. And last, but certainly not least (drumroll, please): Why are you doing this? Yes, I know this goes back to number 7. If you are in this to become a real writer–or, more accurately, an AUTHOR–take the next step. Don’t finish the month with your shiny new 50,000 word masterpiece, shove it in a forgotten file on your computer, or if you write on paper or napkins or whatever, in a shoebox under the bed, and forget about it. Why did you go into this? Did you want to create something to share with the world? If so, apply the lessons you learned during the process of NaNoWriMo and turn that 50,000 word exercise into a real novel.
Don’t know how to do that? Well, lucky for you, I’m going to tell you tomorrow in Part 2 of So You Want To Be a Writer.
With NaNoWriMo 2013 kicking off this week, I thought it appropriate to throw in my two cents about what it means to be a writer. NaNoWriMo is a great vehicle for getting people off their literary asses and at the keyboard mashing out words. I participated in the Great Writing Marathon for the first time in 2008, penning the framework for my novel Red Awakening, which is due for release this week. Make no mistake, however; the 55,000 words I ended up with on November 30 of that year was NOT the novel that is being published. Maybe 20,000 words of that exercise remains, along with the main character, but that’s it. That being said, here are eight tips to keep in mind for NaNoWriMo.
1. 50,000 words is NOT a novel (see above and below). Hell, most real writers can crank out 50,000 words in a weekend. 35,000 of them will be crap, but that’s beside the point. This blog post is nearly 1300 words and I wrote it in under an hour. To reach 50,000 words, you need to write 1667 words a day, every day, for 30 days. The point of NaNoWriMo is teaching your writing muscles to write.
2. To quote the venerable Yoda: “There is no try, there is only do.” It amazes me, listening to people before NaNoWriMo begins, how many of them say they hope they can finish. Have you ever heard a marathon runner say they hope they can finish? No. No one who expects to win says they hope they can finish. You either plan to finish or you stay on the sidelines. You want to play with the big boys, then pull on your big boy pants, roll up your sleeves, sit your butt down in that chair and write. Write till your fingers bleed. Write till your brain starts leaking out your ears.
Okay, maybe that’s a little extreme, but you get my meaning. Whatever reason you tell yourself or others about your decision to participate in NaNoWriMo, it really boils down to this: somewhere deep down inside, you fancy yourself a writer. No one takes on a challenge like this on a whim. No one says, “I’m bored, I think I’ll do NaNoWriMo because it looks like fun.” Excuse my French, but bullshit. If that’s what you're doing, stop wasting everyone’s time and go back to your tweeting and texting. This is a serious challenge for serious people. Doesn’t mean you can’t have fun, but dammit, do it while writing. And if my saying that makes you mad, then good. Use that anger in your writing.
3. That 50,000 words you need to win? They’re just words. They don’t have to be perfect, they don’t have to be spelled correctly or written in the Queen’s English or hell, even make sense. Just WRITE them. Got an idea about something in your character’s past? Write it down. Think about a scene that happened before the book’s events? Write it down. Wonder what that guy across the street is doing on his roof? You guessed it–write it down.
See, the point of this whole exercise is it IS an exercise. It’s creating muscle memory in your brain to write, so that when you sit down at the keyboard, you know what to do without thinking about it. You think an athlete wonders which foot to put in front of the other when he takes off across that field? No, he just runs because that’s what he has trained to do. Be a writing athlete.
4. Conquer that mental 50,000 word barrier. To a wannabe writer, 50,000 words sounds like a lot. But think about this: the typical novel is 80,000-100,000 words, which means a writer will actually write any where from 110,000 to 130,000 words to get it. That’s taking into account editing, rewrites, etc. And most published authors write two, sometimes three books a year. So for a real writer–if that’s what you want to be–50,000 words is...meh.
5. DON’T EDIT. I cannot stress this enough, so I’ll say it again. DON’T EDIT. Also, don’t rewrite. Don’t correct spelling. Don’t worry about punctuation or consistency or tense or voice or any of those things you’ll do when you actually get around to writing A NOVEL. In fact, don’t even go back and read what you wrote. Just keep going. Pretend there’s a brain-eating zombie chasing you and the only way to outrun it is to keep writing. Don’t look back, don’t stop to tie your shoe, don’t hit the delete or backspace key. Just WRITE.
6. This may sound like I’m repeating myself, but that’s only because I am. There is one truth you have to keep in mind for NaNoWriMo: just because the title of this exercise has Novel in it, don’t make the mistake of thinking that what you’re writing here is really a novel. This is a 50,000 word brain push-up-synopsis-character sketch-outline. Just like a photographer who takes 100 pictures to get one good one, you’re going to write 50,000 words to get 20,000 usable ones. And that’s if you’re lucky. Don’t like those odds? Get over it.
7. This one always makes me laugh–I call it The Veteran NaNoWriMo Participant. Now, I’m going to be generous here and assume there are actually people out there who approach NaNoWriMo as a fun-filled challenge they participate in every year for the hell of it. Sometimes they win, sometimes they choke. But not once, in all their years of climbing onboard the NaNoWriMo train, do they ever take the next step and actually turn that 50,000 word exercise into a finished, much less publishable novel. I spoke to woman several years ago who said she has “written” twenty 50K word novels. I didn’t even know how to respond to that.
At the risk of beating a dead horse (and yes, I am aware that poor horse is starting to look like hamburger), 50,000 words is NOT A NOVEL. And the 50,000 words you crank out during NaNoWriMo is in no way, shape, or form even close to resembling a novella, much less a novel. At best, it’s the beginning of a first draft. More likely, it’s a collection of random garbage with a couple of words that might, with a lot of hard work and dedication, become the basis of something worth reading. Harsh, I know. The truth hurts, which, if you want to be a writer, is something you’re going to have to learn to swallow because WRITING IS HARD WORK.
8. And last, but certainly not least (drumroll, please): Why are you doing this? Yes, I know this goes back to number 7. If you are in this to become a real writer–or, more accurately, an AUTHOR–take the next step. Don’t finish the month with your shiny new 50,000 word masterpiece, shove it in a forgotten file on your computer, or if you write on paper or napkins or whatever, in a shoebox under the bed, and forget about it. Why did you go into this? Did you want to create something to share with the world? If so, apply the lessons you learned during the process of NaNoWriMo and turn that 50,000 word exercise into a real novel.
Don’t know how to do that? Well, lucky for you, I’m going to tell you tomorrow in Part 2 of So You Want To Be a Writer.
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