National Novel Writing month, also known as Nanowrimo is a wonderful, horrible exhilarating, debilitating indescribable month when authors from all over the world set out to write a 50,000 word novel in the month of November.
That's right.
50,000 words.
That comes out to about 1667 words a day every day in November.
I've done it a few times and succeeded once and I want to pass on my pain, I mean, my experience for those of you getting ready to try it out for yourself.
And I've brought on my friend and fellow author, Luke Kondor to help me out.
LUKE: My name is Luke Kondor, spelled Kondor. I am a writer myself. Currently in the UK, you might be able to hear from my accent uh currently living in the middle of Sherwood forest next to some trees and inside a house like some people do.
FC: So, here are seven methods to help you win NaNoWriMo.
Number one, the first thing is don't edit as you go.
NaNoWriMo is all about getting the first draft done. I know it will be terrible. It's going to feel impossible to just write those words, you'll literally be typing words, you know that you will delete later and that's fine.
Keep going.
Word count, word, count, word count. Luke, tell them what your best advice is for NaNoWriMo.
LUKE: One of my best tips here for you is to win the morning. If you can, I'd say aim a little higher than the, than the standard word count, uh a day. But try and aim for 2000 words a day and you give yourself a little bit of a leeway uh for any of those uh days where you need to spend a bit more time thinking about the story or something like that.
So that would aim for 2000 words a day, but I'll try and get at least 1500 words done before breakfast. Honestly, getting the big chunks out of the way as soon as possible gives you a real sense of freedom. It will make the whole thing way more enjoyable.
FC: Third, track progress and post online wherever you can. NaNoWriMo has a great site where you can add friends and it makes tracking your progress easy or find a writer friend to do it with you and send each other your running word count total at the end of the day trying to beat their total.
LUKE: Also say write to a timer. That's what I do. I write to uh the Pomodoro timer. It's 25 minutes of pure diggy clackity keyboard work. And then five minutes of breathing, drinking coffee, getting myself back into the game and in 25 minutes of back to the type, right?
So click, click, I want to hear his keys, clicking and clicking. That's the way to do it.
FC: Fifth, fill in the details later. Now I'm going to do a full video on this soon. But for now, wherever you can in your first draft, write (Insert name here) and keep going.
That mountain needs an awesome name but not right now. The word count is the only thing that matters right now.
Number six, don't beat yourself up. If the words are not coming, the first week is exhilarating. You're doing it. You're finally writing your book. The second week is fun. You've written over 15,000 words. That's crazy. The third week, nearly impossible, which is why you need this last piece of advice from Luke.
LUKE: Also uh celebrate the small wins. Nothing major. Just give yourself a pat on the back every day after you finish your word count after you clock out for the day and then tell yourself, you know what mate me, who, who, who am I uh writer, you know what writer person? You did a good job today, well done and then relax, breathe, go to bed, get an early night sleep.
FC: I read once that like 80% of people want to write a novel at some point in their life. And you, you're actually gonna do it and you're gonna do it in a month. So set yourself up for success. However you can and write your book. I can't wait to read it.
Jump build Fly.
This week's featured indie book is actually a fiction podcast. Luke Kondor's fiction podcast called The Other Stories. It's an award winning horror sci fi thriller fiction podcast with new episodes every Monday. Find it wherever you get your podcasts and check out all of Luke's books at www.lukekondor.com.