This is a Test

NaNoWriMo Interlude

An update: So This Is A Test was conceived in the middle of National Novel Writing Month in 2017 and added to in 2021. I have not looked at the chapters since, but I found that I often believed I had already written everything when I had not, so the chapters have been locked in my head for some time.

I am using NaNo to force myself to place in written form so I can clean it up by some time in 2024 for publication in 2025. I am going to follow others in trying to publish these drafts close to the time I finish them, so I expect a WORLD of spelling and grammar errors. Feel free to point any out.

HOW I NANOWRIMO

I have a system that works for me, but may not for others. I do a combination of several techniques which has been pretty succesful. Maybe they can help others.

First, I try to write words every day. I do not try to hit the 1,667 average each time. It is fun to have the above average streak, but it is not possible to do it every time, and if that was a goal and I failed, it would kill motivation. I have had days where I only wrote ten words, and that is still words written for a day, so it counts.

Second, I will allot a block of time to write. It is often an hour or more before I need to go to work, which I know is not always feasible for people with families and children. I would set a goal of having to be wrapped up at 6:30, as an example, so I write until 6:15 before employing my next trick.

Once 6:15 appears, I continue to write until my word count (which I keep on screen at all times) shows  a sentence has my final word count ending in zero. It only takes an average of ten minutes or so. This serves several purposes. One, it is a nice clean number, which pleases the OCD side of me. More important, when I have placed my totals in the NaNoWriMo website, I have made a typo before where I had to search all my documents and re-check the word counts to find and correct the mistake. It is easier to double check 17490 + 1860 compared to 17497 + 1869. I am decent at math, but by "removing" one number form the equation and not having to add the last digit makes things easier, especially when I am rushing to enter totals before work.

Because I do not stop on the end of a scene, or even the end of a paragraph, I am able to start from a point of momentum. I have found when having to jump into writing again the next day, if a scene was finished, it can be hard to start a new one. It is far easier to resume a conversation, finish a scene, and move into the next one.

Also, as I have been employed with the same company full-time for a while, I have been able to arrange my vacation time to where I take the last week off of work every year to give me the window to catch up. I also try to start as early as possible to where I slept during the day to wake up and start at midnight exactly. I do not expect others to do the same. These are acts of madness, but I enjoy them.

Last point: DO NOT RESEARCH. You don't need to know every detail about how a bugs hangs onto a tree or edible plants in the Himalayas or any of that. Researching is a rabbit hole everyone falls into and it is a time suck. I should know; I do it every year, but this is about you being better than me.

I have other tips, but midnight is minutes away. If I think of them, I will add later. Good luck to all that try NaNo, and remember, winning is getting words on paper or in a digital form. It isn't about hitting the goal, but striving for it.