I've never written a novel, I don't normally have the attention span or really an idea that I feel needs to be longer than a short story. But I've had this idea for a little while now for a novel and I figured I might as well crank it out in November. Any tips on how to prepare to write it? How do you guys go about it? Anyone else participating this year? Let me know :)
I'm going to participate this year. I did it last year as well and it was a lot of fun. To answer your "How do you go about it?" question:
I'm doing the whole planning/outline the story/taking notes about characters and setting thing on a mighty piece of software called Scrivener. Scrivener is available on Windows, Mac and Linux (beta version, completely free). It really helps you to organize your writing! There's a free 30-days trial and it's really easy to export your work at the end of it if you're not convinced.
I do my writing itself on FocusWriter, a minimal, distraction-free, highly-customizable, feature-rich text editor. It's completely free and available on all platforms.
Lastly, I use DropBox to sync and save my writing between all my devices and in the cloud. It's very useful as it will always keep a copy of both files in case of major differences between two sync. DropBox's basic plan gives you 2GB of storage for free, and it also allows you to access your document on your Android or iOS phone.
(I also use a spreadsheet to keep track of my wordcount, but you can find hundred of those on the web.) As far as pieces of advice go, there are countless of them on the Nano forums, so my biggest tip would be: sign up on the website and read the forum! You'll probably find a forum for your very own region, where other crazy-minded writing people organize write-ins and other various nano-related events. Depending on your style, you may fall into one of three categories: - a plotter (someone who outlines and prepares the hell out of their work before starting to write on November 1st, who has all their characters described, all their scenes planned, and so on) - a pantser (from the phrase "flying by the seats of one's pants": you haven't prepared anything and you just start writing whatever comes to mind on November 1st) - a mix of the two above (most people). The NaNo forums cater to all three. You may want to read all the resources you can find for the next couple of days - after all, you still have a solid three weeks before November. If you have questions, feel free to ask them!
Wow thanks so much. I'll definitely be utilizing these things. I feel like I'm normally a pantser, which is why I mostly stick to short stories, but I've attempted novels a few times and it never seemed to work for me. I'll be getting my plotter on this time, hopefully it will work out better. Thanks again!
You're welcome! My Nano name is Damnatio Memoriae, add me as a writing buddy if you so wish.
Haven't participated myself but I find whenever I get in the writing mood, however rare it may be for me, the best thing to do is to just write. Don't read it, don't edit it, just write out until you don't feel like writing any more. And then stop, go back the next day, read, revise, and write some more. You may not write the best story for NWM, but anything is better than nothing!
Write, write, don't stop, and don't edit is exactly the spirit behind NaNo! :D
I'm going to participate in it. Last year I tried to write something kafkaesque where a man in a dystopian society is transferred to a surreal mental hospital for a reason unknown to him and he spends the rest of the novel attempting the escape, with it ending much like Kafka's endings with him dying without even getting close to leaving the hospital. After about twenty thousand words in I was disgusted with the whole thing and abandoned it. In retrospect I should have at least saved a copy of it just to look back at it, but I remember most of the important ideas and characters though. This year I have no idea what I'm going to write about. I have some ideas, but they're really more suited for video game projects. I'll see what I can do. As for preparation, every day I get a writing prompt and attempt to write something about it. I would post a link to some of my writing, but it's on a private blog and I feel self-conscious about it. Aside from that I just wing it with a minor goal of reaching a certain word amount. I don't really like to plan things out, but I find that oftentimes when writing I subconsciously form a plan in my mind of how I think the story would go anyway. What I use for my writing set up is text room, which is cool enough for my purposes, and I just upload whatever I write to a private wordpress blog I run.
While I've had the typical "I'd like to write a novel some day" thought, I don't think I'd be able to motivate myself to stick to a single topic for an entire month. But perhaps I could tweak the idea to do something similar. I was thinking of writing articles on in depth topics about video games and the fictional cultures within them. Everything from economies, to diets, etc. Just random various things in games that people don't normally think about. I already enjoy discussing this type of stuff, so I think writing articles on it would be neat.
Novels don't have to be restricted by a single topic! When I write I find a fun little "game" to play with myself is to try and connect as many different ideas as I can in a some what decent manner. Besides, writing is like anything else in like. It's take practice!
I've never participated before, but I may participate by trying to write 1.5k words a day. It would just be a ranty, disorganized mess but it would be my mess. Ending up with 45,000 of my own words would be a pretty great accomplishment. I'm going to start by detailing chapter subjects. I may even base my subjects off of things on Hubski. Anything random would be wonderful. I just need to keep my motivation and it could happen.
2k / day is 2 hours of writing, and not any writing, it's about making stuff up. It's hard. Super damn hard. Imagine telling a totally bullshit story to someone for 2 hours? Every day! Good luck. 1/ write in the morning. 2/ write when you're tired (it will shut down your inner editor. Never use tiredness as an excuse to not write) 3/ Give your character totally crazy stuff they are into (copper market stock exchange, botanic from south Arabia, painting with feces, etc ).
Anything you can just totally invent on the spot (dont do research, you have no time) . Stuff you can write something about when you have nothing to write, stuff that might amuse you to invent, just to keep the flow going. 4/ Finish your 2k day count in middle of a sentence. The next day you'll already have a beginning. 5/ Never read what you've done so far. That's for the re-writing.