I'm a huge advocate of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo). Last year I wrote a 50,000 word rough draft of The Gate during the month of November.

What is NaNoWriMo?

From the NaNoWriMo website, the official description is:

National Novel Writing Month is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to novel writing. Participants begin writing November 1. The goal is to write a 175-page (50,000-word) novel by midnight, November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm and perseverance over painstaking craft, NaNoWriMo is a novel-writing program for everyone who has thought fleetingly about writing a novel but has been scared away by the time and effort involved.

Because of the limited writing window, the ONLY thing that matters in NaNoWriMo is output. It's all about quantity, not quality. The kamikaze approach forces you to lower your expectations, take risks, and write on the fly.

Read more about Nanowrimo and the rules

My definition of NaNo is that it's a joint dare. Writers from all around the world get together and say:

"I dare you to write a novel in 30 days."
"Yeah, you want to step outside with your laptop?"
"I'll take you on, anyday..."

Actually, it's much friendlier than that,and to be honest, if it wasn't for the other writers who became my buddies during last year's NaNo, I would never have made it over the line.

Quantity over Quality

The burning question is why? Isn't 10 thousand words of painstakingly crafted work better than 50K of utter rubbish?

Ultimately, of course it is. But NaNo is not about painstaking craft. It's a different approach to writing altogether and it has different goals and outcomes. After a month of writing I produced a rough draft of my second novel, which ordinarily might have taken 9 months to produce.

And the rough draft was only one of the things I got out of the process.

Last year the things that I got out of NaNoWriMo included:

• Being a writer, committing to my passion and actually having the discipline to write almost every day
• Giving myself the permission to write cr@p, ignoring my inner editor, and just getting the words and ideas down. I fleshed out my entire plot and then spent the six months it would have ordinarily taken me to write the darn thing, in finding plot holes, fleshing out characters and motivations.
• Working through the plot from beginning to end, getting to know my characters, setting and more subtle themes and dynamics than I'd originally envisioned.
• Letting the creative forces do as they willed, without censoring, or trying to control the outcome
• Proving to myself that I could find the time to write, and taming the Muse so I could be productive at will. I now know that I can write 10K in a weekend (which I've done) because of NaNo.
• After 50,000 words of writing, my prose improved. That's almost 6 months worth of writing. It'd be hard not to improve by the time you're finished.

Well, it's hard to summarise everything I got out of NaNoWriMo, but there's a start.

If I can do it, you can too!

Well I have written a novel before, but let me tell you about my project last year, which was conceivably the worst project to choose.

One of the recommendations for new NaNo'ers is to choose a project you're not attached to. If you're in love with your project, you may not be able to gag your critical facilities enough to plough through 50K without censoring or editing your work. So I chose a short story that wasn't working because it probably wanted to be longer. That was my first difficulty. Ultimately I ran out of material to write. I wrote away for the first week, hit 10 thousand words, and decided I was done. My buddies over at NaNo told me I couldn't quit, so I struggled on, creating events, conflicts, and banal conversations about destiny until I hit 40K. The last ten thousand words were excruciating as I really had not much else to work with. But my Critique Circle buddies kicked me over the line (thanks guys & gals!).

Thankfully I've managed to rework my story so that it's now 72,000 words (very little of which is cr@p), and I'm just about finished the second draft.

The second difficulty I had is that I write literary fiction and the setting (for very good reasons I'm sure) was in an isolated stretch of the Australian bush. Beyond the main five characters, the only other character appearances occurred in flashbacks. So, no vast cast to put on stage, no car chases (although I briefly contemplated a helicopter crash), and five days of trekking through remote, reasonably monotonous scrub (also for very good reasons). I did manage to put in a Zombie scene (which I'm very proud of!), but the bulk of the novel is about character interactions, motivations and LOTS of introspection.

Next time I swore I'd write a fantasy or something with a discernible plot! Alas, I'm writing literary fiction again this year, but thankfully the setting will provide a lot of creative fodder.

But seriously, if you have a decent plot, there's quite literally heaps of things you can write about in a month.

NaNoWriMo Survival Guide

Those of us who have done NaNo before will all have our own unique approach on how to survive a month of madness. Mostly this involves stimulants/caffeine, alcohol and lots of chocolate and ice-cream.

Last year I was on a restrictive diet and couldn't indulge in anything more than unsweetened fruit-juice, handfuls of cashews, and bowls of yoghurt.

So here are my tips for surviving NaNoWriMo 2007.

DO...

1. Write a detailed outline. I can't stress this enough. You don't need an outline when you're doing well, but it really helps when you're struggling with writer's block. You can just look down at the list and see that you need to write a Turkish Bath scene, and you're back on track
2. Aim for 2,000 to 3,000 words per day. There will always be days or times that you can't write, when a long-lost cousin turns up on your doorstep for the weekend. Give yourself some buffer so that those uncontrolled interruptions don't send you for a "six" (um cricket analogy for those who don't know - something to do with hitting a small hard ball a very long way, and hoping you're not the one who has to fetch it back)
3. Try to stay within 2,000 – 3,000 words of your target. It's essential to keep your morale up. There's nothing worse than seeing that you're 5,000 or 8,000 words behind. Stay a day or maximum two days behind schedule (you can always catch this up over the remainder of the month or have a really huge weekend)
4. Set aside a set time to write every day.
   • In the morning before you go to work
   • During your lunchbreak
   • After dinner

   Using this technique I can write 3,000 words per day.

5. Let the people around you know what you’re doing, and ask for their support.
6. Lock your inner editor in the cupboard!
7. If you’re stuck, do challenges and sprints.
   • 200 words
   • The first to 500 words
8. If you’re stuck, try writing one of the following:
   • Dialogue only
   • A character sketch
   • A scene that occurs before or after the events in your story
   • A frivolous scene that’s fun to write
   • A sex scene (since you won’t have time for any actual sex during NaNo)
9. Connect with fellow NaNo’ers through the online forums, by telephone or regular meet ups.

DONT...

1. Delete anything you’ve written! It doesn't matter what you've written but don't carve into your wordcount. Just leave it and write around the really trashy sections
2. Edit. This is just consuming creative energy that could be spent writing. Plus you'll find that once you've let your inner editor out, he/she will be hard to shove back in the cupboard.
3. Re-read what you’ve written unless you think it was Pulitzer prize winning material (or unless you absolutely have to figure out what Colonel Mustard did in the Ballroom with the Candlesick). Morale is everything. If you look at your work and get disheartened at the rubbish you're producing it won't help your cause. Ignore what you've written and keep writing!
4. Be concerned about writing scenes that will not be included in your final manuscript. Everything your write will help to deepen your characters, setting, and plot. And I've found that seemingly irrelevant scenes have a tendency to appear in backflashes and quiet moments of introspection.
5. Procrastinate. You don’t have the luxury.
6. Obsess about the state of your house, your finances, or your relationship ;-). A month is not really that long, and you''l soon discover that your house and your finanaces will manage without your full attention for that time.
7. Stress. This is meant to be fun

Remember, if you don’t make it, it doesn’t matter. 10K words is still more than you would have written without the motivation of NaNoWriMo

Register! What are you waiting for?

Join the madness now!