Five Tips for Surviving and Thriving During NaNoWriMo
By: Emma Boone
Tags: NaNoWriMo, Writing Life, Writing, Writing Tips, Writers On Writing

and why it might be worth starting if you haven’t yet

Photo by Windows on Unsplash

I listened to a podcast recently where the host interviewed Carey Lohrenz, the first Female F-14 Tomcat Fighter Pilot.¹ Lohrenz’s job was literally life-or-death, especially when it came to landing a high-speed fighter jet at night on a boat’s airstrip. She described it as pitch black with minimal visibility. The boat was likely pitching with the waves. There were often storms. The weather and darkness and lack of sensory input made it disorienting.

She consistently lived with the stress of a job where making a mistake or miscommunicating could kill her or her team members. As she spoke about how the fear showed itself in tangible physical and mental ways, she said something that has stuck with me for weeks.

She said, “Ironically, the only thing you can do to ever slightly mitigate that tension, or that anxiety, is to do it again.”

I understand that writing a novel is not in any way a life or death situation. Most of us write because we love it, and we hope to be successful with it, but we would probably keep doing it even if we never are. But the only way we’ll know if we’ll make it, the only way we’ll get better at doing it, is just to do it, and then do it again.

National Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo², is a perfect way for authors to throw themselves into the writing lifestyle. Because it has specific perimeters (write 50,000 words) and goals (write 1,667 words per day) within a finite amount of time (November 1–30), with a tangible reward at the end, it’s an excellent tool for would-be authors. It takes courage to take that first step, and for many people, NaNoWriMo can be that first step.

There is a lot of information about NaNoWriMo and its history on the Internet, so I won’t spend time on that here, but even though I am in no way affiliated with the program, I am a huge advocate of NaNoWriMo because when the focus is quantity over quality (more on that later), perfectionism must necessarily be pushed aside. As writers, we’re more able to focus on simply putting words on a page, and it becomes an excellent motivator to finish an idea you’ve been putting off, start a new project, or simply a low-stakes way to try your hand at putting your creative work into the world.

Roman educator Marcus Fabius Quintilianus said, “Write quickly and you will never write well; write well, and you will soon write quickly.”³

Maybe we’re more efficient than the Romans were. Maybe having laptops instead of quill and ink or stone tablets makes a difference, but I believe the exact opposite. Writing quickly will help you write better because you’ll write more often, you’ll produce more content, and you’ll get better as you practice. So with that said, here are a few ways to start NaNoWriMo if you haven’t yet, or thrive during the month if you have.

Schedule your time

NaNoWriMo is a stressful month (throw in an election, and you might just be maxing out your anxiety levels) that will work out so much better if you’re disciplined. Put it on your calendar and know when it’s coming each day.

A lot of times we don’t prioritize writing. We feel like it’s not as important as our job or our family or cleaning the house or any number of other things, so we leave it to chance, hoping to squeeze it in. But if we schedule the time, it creates the mindset that it’s a priority and makes it easier to be disciplined.

New York Times bestselling author and prolific writer, Joanna Penn, says: “Schedule your writing time. Seriously, this could be a transformational step if you’ve not done this before. It’s not complicated. Get out your calendar or your smartphone app or however you schedule your time, and put in slots for writing.

“Then show up for that time to write just as you would show up for a business meeting or a gym class or anything else that is time-sensitive. Stop making your writing slot optional or showing up late as if it doesn’t matter.”⁴

Knowing when to show up each day will reduce stress levels and make sure your writing goals stay on target.

Plan ahead

NaNoWriMo is all about fast writing and not necessarily good writing, which is often expected when you’re writing quickly. There’s a famous Anne Lamott quote about not letting perfectionism get in the way of your shitty first draft. However, Lisa Cron makes the brilliant distinction that “there’s a massive difference between the shitty first draft on an actual story and a shitty first draft that randomly romps all over the damn place.”⁵

I’m a big advocate of at least knowing the main guideposts for your plot, so you’re not wasting time creating a nonsensical mess that will require massive rewrites, and then leaving the in-between moments open for creativity and discovering your characters as you go along.

I say if you:

1. Have a basic premise

2. Know what your main character wants/needs/is motivated by

3. Have guideposts for the beginning, the middle, and the end

Then you’re ready to roll!

One plotting method that I personally love is designed by Dan Harmon, creator of Community and Rick and Morty, where he uses a simple circle chart to map out the arc for each character, a circle for each episode of his shows, and a circle for each overall series arc. It’s a very clever and simple way to visualize the direction of a story, and I’ve found the method helpful in my own writing.

If you refuse to plot anything ahead of time, at least take a minute and write down a sentence or two about where you’re going the next day. You will save a lot of time and energy that you might otherwise spend staring at a blank screen and wondering where to go with your story next.

Put yourself in the zone

It’s a lot of fun to look at famous authors and their writing rituals. Stephen King grabs his tea and vitamins and sits in the same place every day at the same time; Maya Angelou would rent a hotel room and only use it for writing; Jack Kerouac once had a habit of lighting a candle to write by, then symbolically blowing it out when he finished. A lot of us, maybe even without realizing it, have rituals or spaces or specific writing quirks we do to put ourselves in the zone.

If you don’t have one yet, consider writing to a specific playlist that you only use when writing. Kick off your writing by reading a book with a tone or voice similar to what you’re going for. Write in the same spot or at the same time every day.

When you do the same things over and over, it rewires your brain to be triggered to do that thing subconsciously, instead of having to fight yourself all the time. Let your brain know it’s time to write by finding a consistent habit or place or sound to tie it to, then it’ll be much easier to get in the groove.

I personally love power poses. If you haven’t watched Amy Cuddy’s TedTalk⁶ about body language, do that. There are also some great yoga poses and breathing techniques that are incredibly effective at getting my energy levels high, and now those have become the triggers that automatically put me in the zone to sit down and be productive.

Write in bursts

There are many books out there about writing fast. Two of my favorites are The 8-minute Writing Habit by Monica Leonelle and 5,000 Words per Hour by Chris Fox. Or The Pomodoro Technique by Francesco Cirillo, which talks about working more effectively by using 20 minute chunks of time. But the basic premise of all of them is the same: set a timer, don’t go back to correct yourself, and write as much as you can in that short amount of time.

The reason I think this is so effective is because our brain knows there’s an end in sight. We can do anything for 8–20 minutes, and it’s even fun to compete against ourselves to see if we can beat our numbers each time. This is the method I have used for drafting hundreds of pages. Write for 20 minutes, as fast and hard as you can, then take a break, and do another 20 minutes later in the day. You can also find a writing buddy and set the timer together and compete to see who finishes the most words. Writing sprints are fun and easy and keep you from getting stuck on perfection.

Most of us could complete our daily 1,667 NaNoWriMo words in three or four 20-minute blocks, so really, that’s only taking up an hour or so of our day.

Take the decision making out of it

This goes along with scheduling, planning, and putting yourself in the zone, but making the decisions about when to write and what to write and where to write, etc., will make a huge difference in you not burning out.

There are some really interesting stories of wearing down prisoners of war and how the body is physically incapable of fighting back or making decisions when the body is under too much stress or pressure.

Even outside of being a prisoner, some of the most successful people in the world consciously avoid having to make decisions that are stressful simply by making small choices ahead of time. For example, Mark Zuckerburg, Barak Obama, and formerly Steve Jobs, wear basically the same outfits daily so they don’t have to waste mental energy making that choice every morning. Ariana Huffington doesn’t take electronics into her bedroom so she’s not tempted to waste time or play around instead of resting. Mark Wahlburg gets up at 2:30 a.m. to keep up with his workout schedule and everything he wants to do professionally.

None of these are huge decisions, but they all require planning and dedication in order to make the most out of each day and each opportunity for success. They are non-negotiable decisions that create a ripple effect for their larger achievements.

During writing in general, and NaNoWriMo in particular, you’ll often already be mentally tired and stressed. Don’t add to that by forcing yourself to decide every day whether you’re going to write or how much you’re going to write, or even what you’re going to write. Give yourself as much chance for success as possible by deciding it once — and then sticking to it.

A Final Word

As previously mentioned, in the age-old debate over quantity versus quality, NaNoWriMo is all about quantity. And that’s okay because it doesn’t ask you to keep that pace forever and it doesn’t promise that your book will be 50,000 words of perfection. “Winning” NaNoWriMo does not mean your book is ready for publication. It’s after that point that you want to shape your rough draft into a quality novel. Maybe your December can be all about editing. Maybe the 50,000 words set by NaNoWriMo only take you halfway to the finish line of your book. Either way, November 30th is not the end of that book, whether you crossed the NaNoWriMo finish line or not. It’s simply an excellent first step in the right direction.

Just like landing a fighter jet in the dark of night with bad weather — though with admittedly much lower stakes — we can’t control every part of our publication journey, but we can face our fears and take that first step toward accomplishing our dreams.

Productivity expert James Clear states: “Maybe there are people who can achieve incredible success overnight. I don’t know any of them, and I’m certainly not one of them… the only way I made progress — the only choice I had — was to smart small.”⁷ And NaNoWriMo is the perfect opportunity to get started.