On the fence about whether or not you think you can do NaNoWriMo?  Committed but not sure how to go about it? Panicking because the idea of just starting as the clock strikes midnight seems just absurd? 

Chris Baty would encourage you to just start writing from a completely blank slate, and since he's the founder of NaNoWriMo, there's no question his method has merit.  For me, that was the death of my first few attempts.  Now I know that some prep-work, including a refresher on the "NaNoMindset" is a great way to spend the last few days leading up to my favorite month of the year.


Step 1:  Find a Goal and/or Motivation

My first successful year, my main motivation came from a coworker who wouldn't take no for an answer.  He'd done it before and was a fan of my writing.  When he discovered I had tried and failed a few years in a row, there was no question I was going to succeed that year.  He used a bit of shaming but mostly cheerleading to keep me going and keeping my word count ahead of his was my primary "don't give up" strategy.  Find someone you know that's already succeeded and try to stay one step ahead of them.  I'll gladly volunteer to be your benchmark.  Just buddy me on NaNoWriMo.org to compare my pace to yours.

If competition isn't your thing, find a problem to solve.  Last year, my goal was to write a story where a normal, intelligent girl gets involved with a vampire, because there's too much out there where the girl is super special and/or just plain stupid.  This year my goal is to write a story where romance isn't the driving force behind the story.  Why am I doing this?  Because I've never pulled it off and I have another (considerably larger) story in me that wants out, but it doesn't want to turn into a romance. This will be both proof and practice for me.  Once I had a goal, the story quickly followed.


Step 2: Plan Your Novel

How much detail you start with is a personal preference. While you should write any part of your novel before the month starts, there's nothing stopping you from building a rough chapter outline. That's usually no more than a sentence or two to describe generally what the point of the chapter is going to be about.  I shoot for 20 chapters (well, 18 plus a prologue and epilogue) with roughly 2500 words each.  Without having those targets, I can get a little hung up in the early chapters and throw off the pace of the whole novel. My chapter notes get less and less specific in the later chapters because I know nothing never goes quite like I plan.  During the month, as the story takes shape, I go back to this list (which is part of a spreadsheet that I keep open all month long) and jot down better notes for what comes next.

The other thing I do before the month starts is cast my novel.  This is definitely a "me" thing, but it might help you, too.   I find its easier to visualize a character (or a dog, or a necklace) if I play casting director and grab a few pictures off the internet to refer to while I'm writing.  I don't go so far as Dan Brown and refer to my character as a "Tom Hanks" type, though.  The pictures live in their own document but my spreadsheet has a list of all my main characters (before and after they have names) and any pertinent information about them.  Looks, age, history, etc.  This gets updated as the month goes along so that I can quickly refer to the list instead of hunt back through the novel to remember pertinent details.


Step 3: Plan Your Month

Now that you've got both your motivation and your story, it's time to figure out how you're going to get it done.  It's not likely that you'll have the exact right amount of time every day to write 1700 words, and when you find yourself with the time or inclination to write more, you really need to do so.  Few NaNoSetbacks are more discouraging than skipping a day and feeling like you've got to make it all up the next.  Fortunately, you don't.  You have the rest of the month to squeeze in those lost words.  Even if you don't start until the 4th of the month, your daily goal only jumps about 150 words. Skip 2 days midway through, and you're looking about the same upgrade, assuming you're not even a teensy bit ahead, which you probably will be.  Word says there are 161 words in this paragraph, just to give you an idea how negligible a difference that is.

I relish the concrete math behind my progress, so I made myself a spreadsheet to help me keep track.  At the end of each day (or whenever I need to see how I'm doing), I enter the total word count and it automatically tells me how far along I am, how well I did for that day's goal, and what tomorrow's goal is.  I've added comparisons to previous successful years and a bunch of pretty graphs, too.  Last year, when I knew I was going to have several days where I wouldn't be able to write a thing, I added the ability to assign each day a "strength" before the month started.  On the days where my daughter is in daycare I know i'm going to be forging ahead while doing laundry. Other days my evenings will be booked, making finding a 2 hour window to get anything worthy accomplished very difficult.  The day of my cousin's wedding, I'm not even going to open my computer.  By adding this feature, my daily goal is based on how far along I am, how many days are left in the month, and how much writing I think I'll be able to do.  You may not need to go quite as crazy as I do, but you should consider your month and the days you know you'll be able to get a little more in, and days when you're not going to get anything done.


Step 4:  Get Your Head In the Game

The first mind-altering step you has to do with that plan you just made.  Yes, this is something you can do in your spare time, but you still have to make time for writing.  Commit to it like it's a job you need to spend a few hours a day doing. Let the chores go a bit undone. Let the DVR fill up. Get up early or go to bed late.  You can make it all up in December.  The years where I didn't make a conscious effort, the years where I was too apologetic to others for choosing writing over other things, or just ditched the writing for a day or two because I didn't think anyone would understand the sacrifice were the years that I failed.  When I said I was going to do it, spent my free evenings and substantial chunks of my weekend committed to it, I succeeded. Now, nobody blinks when I excuse myself from Thanksgiving Day fun to go write for an hour or two.  In 2008, I went to New York and attended a wedding, I planned and executed a first birthday party and did plenty of other things that month, including not writing for a day or two at a stretch, but I also wrote 50,043 words. Commit to it and you can do it.

You may also need to constantly remind yourself that NaNoWriMo writing is not like other writing. If, like Paul, you think that sitting and dwelling on a scene until you wring the best idea from the recesses in your mind is the way to go, NaNoWriMo will defeat you before you can say Guy Fawkes Day.  Paul's way certainly has merit the other 11 months out of the year, but that's not what November is about.  It's about content.  Let that shitty word stand and move on, or you'll never make it.  If you spend a full day coming up with a clever name for a tertiary character, you're screwed.  Write down the bad word, highlight it so you can go back and fix it next month, and move on. Give him a name like "Clever Guy" and make "Find and Replace" your friend. Know that you're not going to walk away with a final draft on November 30th. You're not even going to walk away with a decent first draft, unless you're better than me, in which case, you suck.  It's going to be a rough draft that wishes it was a first draft.  So why do it?  Because in 30 days, you'll be absurdly close to having a first draft of a complete novel.  How awesome is that?


Step 5: Stall until November First
   
This is quickly becoming a moot point, but some of the hardest moments of NaNoWriMo happen in October.  You've got a story, you've got people, you're chock full of motivation and the words are chomping at the bit to come out.  What do you do until that clock strikes midnight on Sunday morning?  Head back to Step 2 and see what else you can discover before you start.  Write an article for a popular website or your own blog about your process or your excitement to keep your mind on the project. If you're a social person, hang out on the NaNoWriMo forums with other social folks and chat about your upcoming success.  Start telling everyone you know what you're about to accomplish so they can cheer you on.  Donate, buy a t-shirt or invest money into the process in some way.  Nothing motivates like money.

Before you know it, it'll be time to write.
   
   

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