Two Keys to a Successful NaNoWriMo

by
Scott D. Parker

I’ll admit something: I’m a little bummed I’m not doing Nation Novel Writing Month, or NaNoWriMo, in the official way. I really enjoy the camaraderie of writers all channeling their energies into creating 50,000 words in the 30 days of November. It’s a blast and I’ve already booked November 2024 as my next official NaNoWriMo.

But this year? I’m not trying to start a new book. I’m actually trying to finish one. Thus my own spin on the name: NaNoFiMo. I’m driving to finish a book by 30 November. I didn’t start the month on fire with daily word count, but I am about to have some time off on Thanksgiving week and I think I can make up time.

That’s one of the keys to a successful NaNoWriMo:

Stay Flexible

If there’s one thing you must keep in mind as you write your story this month is to stay flexible. Writing a novel is not a sprint. It is a marathon. Each day, however, can feel like a sprint, and you treat them that way. The sprint is the 1,667 words. But here’s a huge weight you can lift off your shoulders.

Don’t get too bogged down in the daily weeds. Maintain the overall goal: 50,000. Some days, you’ll blow past the 1,667 daily benchmark. Others you may fall short. You can make it up. Don’t lose sight of the end goal: a completed story. In the end, it won’t matter if you didn’t reach your daily goal for a third of the days and exceeded it on the rest. All that matters is a 50,000-word completed novel.

You know another key to a successful NaNoWriMo?

Have Fun

In every NaNoWriMo novel I’ve written, there is a wonderful urgency to get the words down. That’s good. But you are also the first reader of the book you are writing. Entertain yourself! Have fun.

My writing times are always in the early mornings before the day job starts. I rise at 5:00 am for these writing sessions.
The family is asleep and I am by myself with my characters and story. I open the laptop and start the daily writing. And I am gone out of this world and into the world of my story.

And I’m grinning at times. My heart races at other times. Heck, I’ve even teared up writing certain scenes. The thing is, I’m wholly invested in the tale.

It is one of the best feelings out there. We’re writers, after all!

So have fun, stay flexible, and enjoy NaNoWriMo.

NaNoWriMo 2021 - Post-Game: What’s Next?

by
Scott D. Parker

NaNoWriMo 2021 is now in the books. How did you do? Did you get to 50,000 words? Did those 50,000 words correspond to the end of your novel? Did you fall short? Don’t worry. I’ve done all those things and more.

This year, I hit a new threshold: I got to 70,063 words in the thirty days of November. That came out to 40.2 hours. Irritatingly, those 70,000 words are not the end of the story, so I kept going. But I allowed myself a new daily goal for December: 1,000 words per day. It’s not quite the benchmark of 1,667 but it’s manageable. It’s helpful, too. I ran into a story wall on Thursday and I needed to brainstorm. It ate up the new words, but I cleared the pathway for the rest of the book (and might’ve even discovered a penultimate scene).

Like I said last week, whatever you did, please celebrate your accomplishment. I know that the physical part of writing is literally sitting in a chair and moving your fingers over the keyboard, but it can take a lot out of you. So no matter if you got to 50K or didn’t, celebrate.

What’s Next?

Well, as I wrote last week, if you want to be a writer, you have to keep writing. Find a new monthly challenge and get a story written. Write a short story per month in 2022. Just keep writing.

But what if you want to publish this NaNoWriMo 2021 book? Author J. Todd Scott on Twitter mentioned this week that his first book was written as part of NaNoWriMo.

What about the book you just completed? Well, do you want to publish it? If so, you can do what I did and publish it an an indie author. Yes, it means you do everything, but you also control everything. You rise or fall based on what you do. It can be daunting, but also rewarding.

First thing, get it edited. Ideally, you’d hire a professional editor, preferably one that doesn’t know you for a completely unbiased review of your book. When you get those changes back, make the changes. You don’t have to make them all. I mean if the editor is telling you the sub-plot needs a complete overhaul, consider why the editor said that, and then make your informed decision. There’s a reason the editor made the comment, but it doesn’t mean the editor is 100% correct. When you’ve made those change, re-read your book and then spot the things you missed.

Get a cover. Unless you know graphic design, hire someone. I used 99Designs to get some of my covers created.

Write a book description. Create your metadata. Determine the price point. Determine your marketing strategy. Format your file. (For this, the company Draft2Digital is recommended because they’ll basically do all the formatting you need for any of the digital marketplaces.) Upload the file to the world.

Then celebrate your accomplishment by throwing yourself a party.

And then? Well, do it all again.

NaNoWriMo 2021 - Week 4 Encouragement: Congratulations, Honest Assessment, and the Future

by
Scott D. Parker

Well, as of yesterday, NaNoWriMo 2021 has only four more days. As nice as it was to start the month and our novels on a Monday, we actually have until this coming Tuesday to reach the 50,000-word mark.

I reached that milestone last Sunday, about 36 minutes into my 76-minute writing session (yeah, I kept track of the time and the exact word count). As of yesterday, I’m up to 61,667 words and I still have a bit to go. Not sure how much, but I’m going to keep going until I get to The End. I kept track of the total minutes written so far and they add up to 35.5 hours. It’s moments like this when I superimpose a month’s worth of writing in spurts of 60-75 minutes over a typical day job of 40 hours a week and start to wonder what it would really be like to have a day job in which I wrote fiction for 8 hours a day. I know that it would not be a one-to-one comparison, but I still think about it. Maybe one day.

So, how are you doing? Did you get to 50,000 words? Did those 50,000 words correspond to the end of your novel or do you still have to keep writing to get to The End? Did you fall short? Don’t worry. I’ve done all those things and more.

Depending on your answers, you should do two crucial things.

First, if you finished, CELEBRATE! You have just written a 50,000-word novel. Celebrate. Tell people about it. Post about it on Facebook. Tweet your accomplishments. Open a bottle of champagne. Seriously on that last part, do it. Ever since I completed book 2, I have sprung for a bottle of bubbly to celebrate. It is a monumental thing if you have written a novel, especially if it’s your first.

Second, if you did not finish, do not beat yourself up or chastise yourself. Do not do those things. They do you no good and, in all honesty, they hamper your next writing effort. Believe me. I know this one all too well. It wasn’t until January 2013 when I again looked at the past year of not writing and finally turned myself around. I didn’t chastise myself like I had on previous New Year’s Days. Instead, I analyzed what had kept me from writing. Once those things were identified, I was able to skirt around them, avoid them, and I became a much more productive writer.

Now what?

Well, you’ve got to ask yourself a question. Did you participate in NaNoWriMo 2021 just to say you have written a novel, or did you do it because you want to keep writing stories? If it’s the former, good for you. Print it out, bind it if you want, display it proudly, and mark it off your bucket list. Mission Accomplished.

But if you found you enjoyed the process and kept doing it, you must keep writing. Seriously. Maybe NaNoWriMo 2021 took a lot out of you. That’s okay. Take a break for sure. Revel in your success. But make a plan--today--that you’ll start your next book on a certain day. My suggestion: New Year’s Day.

Now that you know you can write a novel, do it again. What better way to start a new year than with a new novel. I’ve done it the past few years. It’s a great way to get past the inevitable doldrums I often get in January. It’s like the hangover for all the holidays we celebrate the last 62 days of a year. Make a plan to start a book, and then write that next book. I’ll leave it up to you whether or not you decide to make January 2022 into a NaNoWriMo, but make a plan.

Ideally, you’ll finish your next book by 31 January 2022. Then, do it again. The best way to make it as a writer is to keep writing regularly. The ‘regularly’ is the key part. Writing is a muscle. It needs to be exercised to keep it in shape. And here’s the cool part: the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

Even if you don’t do a true NaNoWriMo of 1,667 words a day, shoot for 1,000. That’s the goal of veteran writer Kristine Kathryn Rusch. In two months, you can have your next book written. Or a novella in 31 days.

Just keep writing. Make it a habit. If you do, you’ll discover the joy of writing, the ease of writing, and it’ll likely make you happy.

Right now, revel in your celebration: NaNoWriMo 2021 is almost over. Congratulations. Now, don’t wait another eleven months to write your next book

NaNoWriMo 2021 - Week 3 Encouragement: Let the Book Breathe and Drive to the Final Week

by

Scott D. Parker

The third full week of November also counts as the third full week of NaNoWriMo 2021. Still having fun yet? I know I am. I am well ahead of the daily pace of 1,667 words per day. As of yesterday, a daily 1,667 words gets you to 31,673. As of now, I’m only 3,100 words shy of 50,000, a threshold I should reach Saturday (if I have a good writing day) or Sunday for sure.

So I’m pretty jazzed about my progress, and I attribute it to a mantra I apply to NaNoWriMo and every other story I write: let the book breath and be what it wants.

What do I mean by that?

I’ve mentioned before that I set out to write a murder/mystery will elements of romance. Well, as it turns out, my 2021 NaNoWriMo book is more family drama than murder/mystery. Don’t worry. The murder is here, but I opted to write this story in which the corpse does not show up in chapter one. I wanted to set the stage first, introduce the characters first, give the reader a sense of them all before something bad happens.

And I think I’ve accomplished that. I’m the first reader even though I’m the writer, and here’s a telling comment about my enthusiasm about this story: I haven’t read anything else all month. The story I want to read is the one I’m writing. Getting up at 5am on weekday to write is not a chore. I almost literally jump out of bed, go through a few calisthenics, fill a coffee cup, and start writing. I can’t wait to get back to the story.

I’m using Google Docs and it tends to wig out around the 10,000-word mark. As such, I create a new file every 10,000 words. I’ve let some folks read the first part and the response has been quite positive. It’s a good thing when you, the writer, enjoy a story you are writing. It’s great when someone else likes what you’ve actively working on.

As we turn the corner to the last full week of November (the month ends on a Tuesday) and some of us have days off where we can possibly spend more time writing, keep this thought in mind: it’s more important for you to finish the book than reach 50,000 in November.

Here’s why. By now, you will likely have already established a pattern, a routine for writing. Whatever it is, keep doing it until the book is finished.

If you can conceivably complete the book by the end of November, do it. But, if you don’t think you can make that deadline...but do think you can complete the book a few days after 30 November, then make the adjustment. Because, when you get right down to it, the reason you started NaNoWriMo in the first place was to complete a book. The 50,000-word mark was only a trick, a hack, to get many writers started. Your book may only be 45,000. If so, then congrats! You’ve written a book. Your book may actually not be done until you get to 95,000 or more. Your book is your book. Do your adjustments as you see fit.

But this last full week of NaNoWriMo 2021 is the final major push. I’ve done it before. I’m doing it now. Millions of others have done it.

And you can, too.

NaNoWriMo 2021 - Week 2 Encouragement: Don’t Sweat a Sub-Par Writing Day

by
Scott D. Parker

As of yesterday, all the writers doing NaNoWriMo 2021 should have reached the 20,000-word mark. This threshold is based on a daily word count of 1,667 words per day. I’m happy to say that I now sit at 31,777 words.

There are two things at play with that number. One, I’m having a blast writing this novel, a traditional murder/mystery, a genre new to me. The words almost always fly from my brain, through the fingers, and onto the screen with joyous abandon.

Additionally, this is more of a character-driven story than I’ve ever written before. For my thrillers or westerns, there’s almost always a bad guy with a gun shooting at my heroes and they have to react. Not so with this book. It’s contemporary, with people talking about real issues and soon to be solving a crime. It’s odd for me, but I’m sincerely digging it. My initial readers are as well. My wife—a very harsh critic, who reads way more books than I do, and typically does not to read some of my more over-the-top stories—surprised me with her verdict on Part I of the story. It buoyed my day yesterday, especially since I’m going down a new path.

Every day until Wednesday, 9 November, I wrote more than 2,000 words in a day. But Wednesday morning, the words didn’t come in a gusher like the other ones have done. I ended up with only 1,880 words that day, above the baseline of a typical NaNoWriMo day, but less than my personal average. I thought about circling back sometime later in the day to bang out and additional 200 words, but opted not to. I wanted to remind myself, when I look at my spreadsheet with the daily tally, that some days will see fewer words than other days. It’s okay and it’s natural. The same thing happened yesterday, when I reached only 1,900 words.

The exception was Thursday. It was Veteran’s Day and I had the day off. What I ended up doing was working on the book all morning. I kept my typical day-job schedule of getting up from my chair every hour and exercising. Basically, I treated the fiction-writing job as the actual day job. It is what I’d love to do. I closed the laptop at noon to go shopping with the wife having booked 5,268 words.

Lessons for the week

It’s okay not to reach a pace you set for yourself. It’s even okay not to reach the 1,667-word mark everyday as long as you have the end goal in mind.

If you have some extra time this month—like I did on Thursday—take advantage of the bonus time and keep writing and add to the book’s total. Not only will you advance your novel, but you’ll be able to reach a point when you can take off a day from writing, like Thanksgiving. Time management is crucial to finishing a book, and be mindful of all the time you have available to write.

NaNoWriMo 2021 - End of Week 1 Encouragement: Get Some Sleep

by
Scott D. Parker

How’s the book coming along?

Today is Day 6 of NaNoWriMo (although for me, it’s still Day 5). If you’ve kept up the daily 1,667 words pace, Day 5 will have you at 8,335 words total.

I’m happy to report that, as of Day 5, I have reached 11,220 words. That's pretty remarkable considering I'm writing in a combined genre brand new to me. I’m actually 2,885 words ahead of schedule, which is fine by me. Remember we have a holiday here in the US on the last Thursday the month. Ideally, I want to be able not to write, although I probably will squeeze in some minutes and words.

The week went pretty well for me this week, writing-wise. I woke at 5am each workday. On Monday, Wednesday, and Friday, I work from home, so I had a nice 85-minute session each of those days.

Tuesday and Thursday was a different story. I go into the office and arrive at 7am. To do that, I have to stop writing at 5:55am. It’s a shorter session, but I bring my Chromebook and finish out the day during my lunch hour.

But I immediately noticed something on Tuesday: I cannot stay up late on Monday. I did, quite by accident, and I really felt it on Tuesday. Wednesday night was different as I went to bed early and made up the sleep time. By now, Friday afternoon, I can feel the lack of sleep. So looking forward to the end of daylight savings time this week. The extra hour of sleep arrives at the perfect time.

So I have two pieces of encouragement for you writers who are on this NaNoWriMo journey

Don’t get too bogged down in the daily weeds. Maintain the overall goal: 50,000. Some days, you’ll blow past the 1,667 mark. Others you may fall short. You can make it up. Don’t lose sight of the end goal: a completed story. In the end, it won’t matter if you didn’t reach your daily goal for a third of the days and exceeded it on the rest. All that matters is a 50,000-word completed novel.

And keep yourself healthy and maintain your sleep schedule. You can’t write if you’re sick or tired.

Until next week, keep writing!

Why I Don't NaNoWriMo

 

By Claire Booth

November begins tomorrow and that’s a very big deal here in NovelLand. It marks the start of NaNoWriMo, or National Novel Writing Month. It started in 1999 as just a thing—get your butt in a chair and get down 50,000 words of a novel, aka a rough draft. It has turned into a motivational tour de force, and now hundreds of thousands of people participate every year.*

I am not one of them.

I can’t write 50,000 words in 30 days. I’m much, much slower than that. And I'm fine with that.

I can’t write and then go back and fix it later. If it needs to be fixed, it get fixed then and there. Instead of writing quickly and then doing many more drafts to shape and mold it, I write like a tortoise and then need only one more draft to get it into shape.

I also am not an outliner (for a great glimpse at someone who is, see yesterday’s post by Scott D. Parker). They might write quickly, but they do a lot of their heavy lifting beforehand. I’m quite literally making it up as I go, and that takes time, my friends.

I probably reach the finish line about the same time as a NaNoWriMo-style writer, I just get there by a very different route than someone who can produce 50,000 words and wait until they’re finished to go back and revamp them. (I’m sure there are those few blessed individuals who can dash off that many words in a month that are glitteringly perfect right from the start—but I’ve certainly never met one of them.)

So as people all over the world sit down tomorrow to start a novel, I’ll be with you in spirit, but not in practice. Happy writing.

 *It also has spawned a non-profit organization, a school curriculum, and a mentorship organization. For more, go to www.nanowrimo.org.

 

NaNoWriMo 2021: Yes, You Can Write a Novel in a Month

by
Scott D. Parker

Are you doing NaNoWriMo this year? I am, and I can’t wait until Monday.

For those of y’all who don’t know, November is National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo), a fun event where writers are challenged to write a 50,000-word novel in the 30 days of November. I’ve done it multiple times, sometimes succeeding and other times failing.

What I enjoy about it is the virtual camaraderie. On any given day that I’m writing a book, I know that there are thousands (millions?) of other authors also writing. But it’s a little different when you’re doing NaNoWriMo. We’re all in this same boat together. We have to manage our writing time, our day jobs, our lives, and just when we plan to get our words in on Thanksgiving Day.

Throughout this month, I will be updating my progress and offering helpful tips and encouragement to keep going. Because every time you write “The End” on a novel is special, but it’s just a tad more special when you do it during NaNoWriMo.

Preparation

I’ve spent the better part of the past two weeks preparing. This will be my first murder/mystery that might lean cozy. As I’ve never written a murder/mystery, I took time to create characters (not named at first) and situations they will have to deal with. Who will be the victim? Who will be the killer? Who will discover the crucial clues?

It was this past Thursday when I knew I was ready to start. I mapped out the first few scenes because I wanted to hit the ground running come Monday at 5am (my writing time). During that little session, my imagination began veering and including little tidbits. I’m a hybrid pantser/plotter. I have just enough framework to give my imagination room to breathe, but breathing with focus. That my imagination was already chomping at the bit, I got even more excited about 1 November.

Typing Names

For the longest time—up until yesterday, in fact—I had no names for my characters. They were just Mom, Son #1, Son #1’s Wife, Girl, Guy, etc. I knew that wasn’t gonna fly come Monday, so I named my characters in a first-for-me manner: I typed them to see how they’d feel and to see if my typing speed and fingers misspelled them often. It’s all well and good to name a character Chrysanthemum Bannington, but can you imagine typing that over and over again? Sure, there’s autocorrect but I prefer to type the names.

So I took some names for a test drive and started filling in my list. I also paid attention to the first letter of those first names. I only repeat one letter one time: B. Every other character has a name that starts with a unique letter. Easier for me the writer and it’ll be easier for future readers to keep everyone straight.

Track Your Progress

The nuts and bolts of NaNoWriMo breaks down to 1,667 words per day. If you do that, you’ll hit your fifty thousand by 30 November.

Over the years, I’ve developed a spreadsheet I use to see where I am. Here’s a screenshot of the first couple of weeks.



You’ll see that I track the obvious stuff: date, the 1,667/day pace, Idea is the pace of 1,667/day, Actual is what I wrote that day, Total is obvious, Diff is how far under or over I am on the 1,667/day pace. I also like to track time spent doing the writing so all those other columns do that.

The “Diff” column is very helpful. Not only does it give you a daily reminder of where you are, but it also enables you to build in a buffer. Remember what I mentioned about Thanksgiving Day? Well, if you are, say, 1,000 words ahead, you can get by with fewer words on any given day.

But let me give what is perhaps the best piece of advice: do not skip a day. If you do, you will get behind, and there’s nothing more demoralizing that running behind.

There is still an even better piece of advice: Have Fun! If you do, it’ll be nothing to reach “The End” in a month.

NaNoWriMo 2020 – Mid-book brainstorming sessions

 by

Scott D. Parker

As of today, all NaNoWriMo writers should have reached the end of the second full week. It really helps when 1 November is a Sunday. And we have reached the halfway point in the month. By the numbers, as of today, all writers should be around 28,000 words in their 50,000-word novels. First of all, if this is where you are, Congrats! You are more than halfway through the month of November and more than halfway through your book. It’s an awesome feeling, isnt’ it? Just wait until you type “The End.” That never gets old, no matter how many books you write.

I’m curious: how many of y’all are writing your NaNoWriMo novel without an outline? Writing into the dark, as Dean Wesley Smith calls it. I’ve done them both ways, but sometimes when you write into the dark, you can hit a snag or write yourself into a corner. I’m then compelled to think my way out of the corner. Sometimes, that comes in the form of backtracking to a point where my story went ‘off track’ and then start again.

What that entails for me is to put a halt to writing the current scene and ask myself a few questions about the scene, why I’m even writing it, and where do I think the story is going from there. Naturally, this process puts the kibosh on new words, but it also opens the door to the next scene.

I use the quotes on ‘off track’ because you can make a genuine argument that no story, no words you may have to delete, is truly a waste. They may not make it into your final manuscript, but they were essential to getting you to The End.

Mid-book brainstorming sessions. It happened to me back in NaNoWriMo 2018 and even as far back as NaNoWriMo 2015. Interestingly, in both years, I hit my snags around days 11 through 17.

Of those seven days back in 2015, five of them involved not only writing but reviewing the scope of that novel. It seemed I was writing scenes that kept affecting subsequent scenes and I just had to keep going. Two things happened back then. One, I had my best day of writing at that point with 3,538 words. Two days later, I experienced my worst at 1,703.

Writing a novel is not a short process. It is long. There will be good days and there will be bad days. The key factor is to keep going. Just keep moving forward. You can do it.

And the theme for this week is simple: if you have to stop or slow down and reassess your novel from the vantage point of the middle, do it. What’ll happen is that you will likely open the floodgates for the rest of the book.

But here’s a more down-to-earth, nuts and bolts piece of advice: If you are truly stuck, finish the scene/chapter you are currently writing. Look no further than that. Just finish this scene, and trust your creative subconscious to help you along. Chances are good you will see light at the end of the tunnel.

So, NaNoWriMo folks, how are y’all doing? 

NaNoWriMo 2020 - Two Things to Remember

by
Scott D. Parker

Well, here we are again. It’s November and tomorrow kicks off National Novel Writing Month. It’s a fun exercise in which you write a 50,000-word novel in the 30 days of the month. That averages out to 1,667 words a day for thirty days.

You may think that it too daunting a challenge. I’m here to tell you it is not.

I know. I’ve done NaNoWriMo in November multiple times. I’ve also done it in a January, a February, a March, and various other times.

It is entirely doable, but take two key lessons I’ve learned in writing a novel in a month.

Stay Flexible

If there’s one thing you must keep in mind as you write your story this month is to stay flexible. Writing a novel is not a sprint. It is a marathon. Each day, however, can feel like a sprint, and I treat them that way. The sprint is the 1,667 words. But here’s a huge weight you can lift off your shoulders.

Don’t get too bogged down in the daily weeds. Maintain the overall goal: 50,000. Some days, you’ll blow past the 1,667 mark. Others you may fall short. You can make it up. Don’t lose sight of the end goal: a completed story. In the end, it won’t matter if you didn’t reach your daily goal for a third of the days and exceeded it on the rest. All that matters is a 50,000-word completed novel.

Have Fun

In every NaNoWriMo novel I’ve written, there is a wonderful urgency to get the words down. That’s good. But you are also the first reader of the book you are writing. Entertain yourself! Have fun.

My writing times are always in the early mornings before the day job starts. Now that I’m working from home because of the pandemic, I have some extra time (because I don’t have a commute). I rise at 5:00 am for these writing sessions. Yeah, that’s sleeping in because I used to wake at 4:30.

The family is asleep and I am by myself with my characters and story. I open the laptop and start the daily writing. And I am gone out of this world and into the world of my story.

And I’m grinning at times. My heart races at other times. Heck, I’ve even teared up writing certain scenes. The thing is, I’m wholly invested in the tale.

It is one of the best feelings out there.

So have fun, stay flexible, and enjoy NaNoWriMo 2020.

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 48 - The End of NaNoWriMo 2019

By

Scott D. Parker

Well, today is the last day of NaNoWriMo 2019. How did you do? Did you get to 50,000 words? I got mine earlier this week, but the book isn't done. So I'm charging ahead and I'll finish the book. I'd like to get it knocked out in a week, but we'll see.

But back to you. Did those 50,000 words correspond to the end of your novel? Did you fall short? Don’t worry. I’ve done all those things and more. But you might be asking the obvious question: now what?

Well, two crucial things--on opposite ends of the spectrum--must now be done, depending on your answers.

First, when you finish, CELEBRATE! You have just written a 50,000-word novel. Celebrate. Tell people about it. Post about it on Facebook. Tweet your accomplishments. Open a bottle of champagne. Seriously on that last part, do it. Ever since I completed book 2, I have sprung for a bottle of bubbly to celebrate. It is a monumental thing if you have written a novel, especially if it’s your first.

Second, if you did not finish, do not castigate yourself. Do not chastise and beat yourself up. Do not do those things. They do you no good and, in all honesty, they hamper your next writing effort. Believe me. I know this one all too well. It wasn’t until January 2013 when I again looked at the past year of not writing and finally turned myself around. I didn’t chastise myself like I had on previous New Year’s Days. Instead, I analyzed what had kept me from writing. Once those things were identified, I was able to skirt around them, avoid them, and I became a much more productive writer.

Now what?

Well, you’ve got to ask yourself a question. Did you participate in NaNoWriMo 2019 just to say you have written a novel, or did you do it because you want to keep writing stories? If it’s the former, good for you. Print it out, bind it if you want, display it proudly, and mark it off your bucket list. Mission Accomplished.

But if you found you enjoyed the process and keep doing it, you must keep writing. Seriously. Maybe NaNoWriMo 2019 took a lot out of you. That’s okay. Take a break for sure. Revel in your success. But make a plan--today--that you’ll start your next book on a certain day. My suggestion: New Year’s Day. Now that you know you can write a novel, do it again. What better way to start a new year than with a new novel. I’ve done it the past few years. It’s a great way to get past the inevitable doldrums I often get in January. It’s like the hangover for all the holidays we celebrate the last 62 days of a year. Make a plan to start a book, and then write that next book. I’ll leave it up to you whether or not you decide to make January 2020 into a NaNoWriMo, but make a plan.

Ideally, you’ll finish your next book by 31 January 2020. Then, do it again. The best way to make it as a writer is to keep writing regularly. The ‘regularly’ is the key part. Writing is a muscle. It needs to be exercised to keep it in shape. And here’s the cool part: the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

Even if you don’t do a true NaNoWriMo of 1667 words a day, shoot for 1000. In two months, you can have your next book written. Or a novella in 31 days.

Just keep writing. Make it a habit. If you do, you’ll discover the joy of writing, the ease of writing, and it’ll likely make you happy.

What about the book you just completed? Well, do you want to publish it? If so, get it edited. Ideally, you’d not get a friend to edit the book--unless the friend is a professional editor. Get it edited, make the changes, and then re-read the book yourself. Make those changes.

Now, get a cover. Write a book description. Create your metadata. Determine the price point. Determine your marketing strategy. Format your file. (For this, the company Draft2Digital is recommended because they’ll basically do all the formatting you need for any of the digital marketplaces.) Upload the file to the world.

But those are topics for different days.

Right now, revel in your celebration: NaNoWriMo 2019 is almost over. Congratulations. Now, don’t wait another eleven months to write your next book.

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 47

by
Scott D. Parker

The third full week of November also counts as the third full week of NaNoWriMo 2019. Still having fun yet?   I know I am.

This week's writing sessions were mainly action scenes. The hero of my tale got himself in a heap of trouble--as heroes are supposed to do--and he's not out of the woods yet.

The one thing I'm consciously doing with this book is the process of cycling. Here's how that works. I write in the morning. When I open the Chromebook, I re-read the stuff I wrote on the previous day's afternoon session, revising, editing, tweaking as I go. On those lunchtime sessions, I review the morning's writing. By the time I get to the blank part of the screen, I'm ready to forge ahead. It's a pretty decent way of writing...and nothing new. Really. But I'm actively doing that this time. Unlike earlier books when I sort of winged it.

The process had paid dividends. It's made for a tighter writing process, one that, by the time I finish this manuscript, will need less editing that normal. That's a huge bonus.

And I should hit the 50,000-word mark before Thanksgiving, but I'm not sure the book will be done by 30 November. I think this book will be more than 50,000 words, which brings up an important question: What is more important: finish the book or finish the 50,000 words in November?

Here’s why. If you can conceivably complete the book by the end of November, then go ahead and get there. If you don’t think you can make that deadline...but do think you can complete the book a few days after 30 November, then make the adjustment. Because, when you get right down to it, the reason you started NaNoWriMo in the first place was to complete a book. The 50,000-word mark was only a trick, a hack, to get many writers started. Your book may only be 45,000. If so, then congrats! You’ve written a book. Your book may actually not be done until you get to 95,000 or more. Your book is your book. Do your adjustments as you see fit.

But this last week of NaNoWriMo 2019 is the final push. You can do it. I did it. I'm doing it now. Millions of others did, too. Come back next week and we can discuss what to do when you successfully reach your own end goal.

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 45

by
Scott D. Parker

One thing dominated my non-day job time: NaNoWriMo.

Like I mentioned last week, I'm getting off my novel-writing snide by participating in NaNoWriMo 2019. But for every creative type, when you start doing your art again, you are rusty.

While I'm ahead of the overall pace for the 50,000-word month, not every day this week was easy. I bested the 1,667 daily average every day but one, but some days it was like pulling teeth.

But if there's one thing I've learned over my years of crafting stories, it's this: Trust the Process.

I have a day job and a family so my writing times are time-limited. An hour or so in the morning before work and around 55 minutes at lunch after a daily chat with my wife. But the other twenty-two hours of the day, story-wise, is time for the subconscious to mull over ideas and next scenes. Sometimes your subconscious hasn't figured out where to go next.

Then there are the days in which it does. Then, you just hold on because your fingers fly over the keyboard and you curse the end of writing time. It was a breakthrough, at least for the near term.

That's what happened yesterday. 

Later on last night, when I read my new words to the wife, she guessed on where the story was going. "No, that's not what I wrote...but dang it I wish I had." Still, I'm going with what my subconscious came up with. We'll see how much fun it'll be.

Trust the process. Always.

NaNoWriMo

So it's Day Four of NaNoWriMo and you can check in here:

https://forums.nanowrimo.org/top/daily

And you can add your project here:

https://nanowrimo.org/?addProject=true

And you can find pals who are also doing this here:

https://nanowrimo.org/search

And they have shirts:

Year of an Indie Writer: Week 44

by
Scott D. Parker

Two things dominated this week: the new Kevin Smith film and the start of NaNoWriMo.

Oh, and a baseball series...Congrats, Steve.

Kevin Smith Live and In Person

If you read my personal blog, you'll know that in advance of the new Kevin Smith film, Jay and Silent Bob Reboot, I watched the previous twelve Smith films. I reviewed each one and this week--on the evening of Game 7 no less--the new movie premiered in Houston. Now, I bought my ticket in July never dreaming it would conflict with anything as monumental as a Game 7. I fully expected to check the score once or twice during the film, but I didn't.

I waited until the credits.

It's a nice film, but not my favorite of Smith's films. I ranked all of Smith's films on Wednesday and ended up with...Jersey Girl. Read my reasons here.

Anyway, Smith and his buddy, Jason Mewes, introduced the movie and conducted a Q&A session afterward. It's a great way to see a movie, and it was the first time I've seen a Smith film with an audience full of Smith fans.

NaNoWriMo: A Tale of Two Writing Sessions

You've done it. I've done it. And I decided to do it again this year.

I haven't written a novel in a little bit. Other things have consumed my time--including me writing a new story for Paul Bishop's new anthology, BANDIT TERRITORY--and it was high time to start. I almost always start a new tale on the first day of the month. This month just turned out to be NaNoWriMo month. Why not?

Well, come 5:15 a.m. yesterday, I was starting to fret. I had the open scene in mind. I knew the main character. Heck, I even had a working title, a rare thing from.

When I opened my Chromebook yesterday morning and started chapter one, it was slow going. Frustratingly so. There have been opening days on novels in which I wrote over three thousand words. Yesterday morning's session, I managed 755.

Come lunch time, it was time for session two of the day. Taking a cue from Dean Wesley Smith, I re-read all that I had written that morning, tweaking and editing and adding bits of color along the way. Then, when I reached were I had stopped, I had a head of steam and kept going.

And kept going. The words flowed.

All the way up to the moment when the last line of chapter one clicked into place a few minutes before I wrote it. The grin that spread across my face was pretty big. I walked back to my day job desk floating, remembering exactly why writing is such an awesome thing. 2,063 words done.

I know every day won't be this way. I know every book won't be this way. But as a creative, those are the times to cherish.

Anyone else doing NaNoWriMo?

NaNoWriMo 2018 - Week 4 - Now What?

By
Scott D. Parker

Well, as of yesterday, NaNoWriMo 2018 came to a close. How did you do? Did you get to 50,000 words? Did those 50,000 words correspond to the end of your novel? Did you fall short? Don’t worry. I’ve done all those things and more. But you might be asking the obvious question: now what?

Well, two crucial things--on opposite ends of the spectrum--must now be done, depending on your answers.

First, if you finished, CELEBRATE! You have just written a 50,000-word novel. Celebrate. Tell people about it. Post about it on Facebook. Tweet your accomplishments. Open a bottle of champagne. Seriously on that last part, do it. Ever since I completed book 2, I have sprung for a bottle of bubbly to celebrate. It is a monumental thing if you have written a novel, especially if it’s your first.

Second, if you did not finish, do not castigate yourself. Do not chastise and beat yourself up. Do not do those things. They do you no good and, in all honesty, they hamper your next writing effort. Believe me. I know this one all too well. It wasn’t until January 2013 when I again looked at the past year of not writing and finally turned myself around. I didn’t chastise myself like I had on previous New Year’s Days. Instead, I analyzed what had kept me from writing. Once those things were identified, I was able to skirt around them, avoid them, and I became a much more productive writer.

Now what?

Well, you’ve got to ask yourself a question. Did you participate in NaNoWriMo 2018 just to say you have written a novel, or did you do it because you want to keep writing stories? If it’s the former, good for you. Print it out, bind it if you want, display it proudly, and mark it off your bucket list. Mission Accomplished.

But if you found you enjoyed the process and keep doing it, you must keep writing. Seriously. Maybe NaNoWriMo 2018 took a lot out of you. That’s okay. Take a break for sure. Revel in your success. But make a plan--today--that you’ll start your next book on a certain day. My suggestion: New Year’s Day. Now that you know you can write a novel, do it again. What better way to start a new year than with a new novel. I’ve done it the past few years. It’s a great way to get past the inevitable doldrums I often get in January. It’s like the hangover for all the holidays we celebrate the last 62 days of a year. Make a plan to start a book, and then write that next book. I’ll leave it up to you whether or not you decide to make January 2019 into a NaNoWriMo, but make a plan.

Ideally, you’ll finish your next book by 31 January 2019. Then, do it again. The best way to make it as a writer is to keep writing regularly. The ‘regularly’ is the key part. Writing is a muscle. It needs to be exercised to keep it in shape. And here’s the cool part: the more you do it, the easier it becomes.

Even if you don’t do a true NaNoWriMo of 1667 words a day, shoot for 1000. In two months, you can have your next book written. Or a novella in 31 days.

Just keep writing. Make it a habit. If you do, you’ll discover the joy of writing, the ease of writing, and it’ll likely make you happy.

What about the book you just completed? Well, do you want to publish it? If so, get it edited. Ideally, you’d not get a friend to edit the book--unless the friend is a professional editor. Get it edited, make the changes, and then re-read the book yourself. Make those changes.

Now, get a cover. Write a book description. Create your metadata. Determine the price point. Determine your marketing strategy. Format your file. (For this, the company Draft2Digital is recommended because they’ll basically do all the formatting you need for any of the digital marketplaces.) Upload the file to the world.

But those are topics for different days.

Right now, revel in your celebration: NaNoWriMo 2018 is over. Congratulations. Now, don’t wait another eleven months to write your next book.

NaNoWriMo - Week 3 - The Final Push

by
Scott D. Parker

Today marks Day 24 of NaNoWriMo 2018, and you now face the final push to reach 50,000 words in this month. When you come back here next Saturday, it’ll be 1 December. NaNoWriMo will be over. Consider this your last pep talk before we do a recap next week.

So, where are you in your journey to 50,000? Back in 2015, when I successfully completed my first NaNoWriMo, I hit the 50,000 mark on 23 November. True, I hadn’t completed the book--that would only occur on 5 December 2015--but I had crossed the threshold of 50,000. And this respective week was not without challenges.

Back in 2015, when I was writing a first draft, I rarely looked back. I forged ahead, crafting new words. If something occurred to to me, say in chapter 13 that affects something in chapter 7, I made a note in chapter 7 and then I go forward from chapter 13 *as if I had already written the extra stuff in chapter 7*. This way, I always have forward momentum. Later, I’d go back to chapter 7 and insert the new material in chapter 7.

Now, in 2018, I have modified my approach. Based on the process of cycling through the manuscript while remaining in creative voice, advocated by Dean Wesley Smith, in that above scenario, I would go back into chapter 7 as soon as the new idea occurred to me. Then, having planted a seed or a foreshadowing, I then charge ahead with chapter 13 and keep going. I have discovered, through practice, that this works better for me. It also works well for Smith and, well, he’s been working on his craft for forty years, so he knows a thing or two.

Last week, I wrote about a mid-book reset. Now, if you are behind on your word count, the best thing to do is ask yourself a simple question: What is more important: finish the book or finish the 50,000 words in November?

Here’s why. If you can conceivably complete the book by next Friday, then go ahead and get there. If you don’t think you can make that deadline...but do think you can complete the book a few days after 30 November, then make the adjustment. Because, when you get right down to it, the reason you started NaNoWriMo in the first place was to complete a book. The 50,000-word mark was only a trick, a hack, to get many writers started. Your book may only be 45,000. If so, then congrats! You’ve written a book. Your book may actually not be done until you get to 95,000 or more. Your book is your book. Do your adjustments as you see fit.

But this last week of NaNoWriMo 2018 is the final push. You can do it. I did it. Millions of others did, too. Come back next week and we can discuss what to do when you successfully reach your own end goal.

NaNoWriMo 2018 – End of Week 2 – Mid-Book Revamps Are Okay

By

Scott D. Parker

As of today, all NaNoWriMo writers have reached the end of the second full week. And we have reached the halfway point in the month. By the numbers, as of today, all writers should be around 28,000 words in their 50,000-word novels. First of all, if this is where you are, Congrats! You are more than halfway through the month of November and more than halfway through your book. It’s an awesome feeling, isnt’ it? Just wait until you type “The End.” That never gets old, no matter how many books you write.

I experienced an interesting bit of serendipity this week. On my current non-NaNoWriMo novel (started 1 October and aim to finish by 30 November), I hit a snag. I’m halfway through the story and I found myself a bit adrift. Unlike previous books, I’m writing this without an outline. Writing into the dark, as Dean Wesley Smith does. Every now and then, I get backed into a corner and I have to think my way out of it. What that entails for me is to put a halt to writing the current scene and ask myself a few questions about the scene, why I’m even writing it, and where do I think the story is going from there. Naturally, this process puts the kibosh on new words, but it also opens the door to the next scene.

So that’s what I did this week for my current book. A mid-book brainstorming session. Complete with notes on a whiteboard. This book is the sixth Calvin Carter novel. The first will be published in January 2019 and this one won’t be published until November 2019, but I wanted all six complete before I start publishing so I can use the various covers in marketing material. I had a fun opening sequence, but I didn’t know why the mystery men stole the MacGuffin of the story. I knew that was an issue, but I kept writing ahead, confident the true reason would manifest itself. It did, but it took a mid-book reset to do it. Now, I at least know the next quarter of the book.

What is serendipitous about this process in 2018? Well, I encountered the exact same problem in 2015 when I participated in NaNoWriMo 2015. Each week this month, as I prepare for these posts, I revisit my own daily updates from 2015. I reviewed Day 11 through Day 17 of 2015. Guess what I (re)discovered? I hit snags back then, too. Of the seven days back in 2015, five of them involved not only writing but reviewing the scope of that novel. It seemed I was writing scenes that kept affecting subsequent scenes and I just had to keep going. Two things happened back then. One, I had my best day of writing at that point with 3,538 words. Two days later, I experienced my worst at 1,703.

Writing a novel is not a short process. It is long. There will be good days and there will be bad days. The key factor is to keep going. Just keep moving forward. You can do it.

And the theme for this week is simple: if you have to stop or slow down and reassess your novel from the vantage point of the middle, do it. What’ll happen is that you will likely open the floodgates for the rest of the book.

But here’s a more down-to-earth, nuts and bolts piece of advice: If you are truly stuck, finish the scene/chapter you are currently writing. Look no further than that. Just finish this scene, and trust your creative subconscious to help you along. Chances are good you will see light at the end of the tunnel.

So, NaNoWriMo folks, how are y’all doing?

NaNoWriMo, a Wall, and Plowing Through

Photograph by Rob Schreckhise

By David Nemeth

Tuesday night I wrote only 26 words. Twenty-six words is not a lot for one day's work especially when one is participating in National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). The issue could be lots of things but 26 words, that's an issue in itself. Over the last couple of weeks, I posted my daily word count and total word count and when I got to 26 words, man, did I want to lie. I so wanted to post fake numbers, maybe add a 1 and 0 in front the 2 and the 6. It wouldn't have looked that bad. No one would be the wiser. But I decided to go with the real number thinking it might motivate me some.

And it did. My work has me consulting at a new company so as I'm ramping up, getting my laptop, badge, software and user accounts, it gave me time to think about what the problems could be. I do have a completed outline, one or two sentences describing the scenes of the book which begins with the death of the protagonist's father and ends a few days later hours after the funeral. As I was writing throughout November, I finally came to a brick wall of 26 words. So as I spent Wednesday downloading software and rebooting almost a dozen times, I realized that the time period was too concentrated. So I added new scenes, edited some old ones, and spread it out over ten days. Will this time expansion work? Who knows? Who cares?  Maybe this change will give me the freedom to continue to keep on writing and finish it, whatever it will be.

Words written on Wednesday: 1,720. Total words: 27,231.

NaNoWriMo - End of Week 1 Encouragement - Stay Flexible

by
Scott D. Parker

Look, I know where you are because I’ve been there.

Today marks Day 10 of NaNoWriMo 2010. It’s also the end of the first full week of writing 1,667 words a day on a novel that’s aiming to be 50,000 words. If you want to think of it this way, 1-3 November of this year (last Thursday through Saturday) was the ramp up. The prelude if you will. I’m a person who likes to view the calendar in weeks. So basically, you have nearly four full weeks to write a novel.

Yes, you can do it.

I’ve been right where you are now. Yes, even there. Let me show you.

Back in 2015, when I successfully completed my first NaNoWriMo, this was my daily line item: Day 10: 2023 (22,193 total; 27,807 remaining). I’ll admit I jumped way ahead on the first three days, writing 3,464, 2,325, and 2,637 words respectively. Here’s what I wrote about Day 2 back then:

“First NNWM day on a work day. Rose at 5:00am. Wrote 1,244 words before work on the laptop. Wrote additional 796 words on the iPod at breaks during the day. I finished off the night with another 285 to round out a chapter.”

So I had some cushion. Which was great considering Day 4 back in 2015. I only wrote 1,709 that day. What happened? Technical issues. Here’s a note I wrote back then:

“The theme of today was flexibility. This morning’s writing session was interrupted when my Mac wouldn’t start. So, I shifted to connecting my iPod Touch with my Apple keyboard. I managed 1100 words or so, but knew I needed to make up the deficit. I wrote some on the iPod at the day job, but deadlines and meetings ate up all my break time. Not much writing done during the day.

Throughout the day, my mind wondered if I had lost all my data. I diagnose the problem, fixed the drive--took apart my laptop and extracted the drive to repair it--and got it working again. Finished the day at 1709 words.”

If there’s one thing you must keep in mind as you write your story this month is to stay flexible. Writing a novel is not a sprint. It is a marathon. Yes, I know writers who can craft a novel in a week. That’s not me. But I can write one in a month. I know because I’ve done it numerous times.

And you can, too.

Just stay flexible.

Don’t get too bogged down in the daily weeds. Maintain the overall goal: 50,000. Some days, you’ll blow past the 1,667 mark. Others you may fall short. You can make it up. Don’t lose sight of the end goal: a completed story. In the end, it won’t matter if you didn’t reach your daily goal for a third of the days and exceeded it on the rest. All that matters is a 50,000-word completed novel.

Let me know how it’s going. And tune in next week for another pep talk.