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NaNo time

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It's NaNoWriMo time again.

That's right; for many of us around the world November is National Novel Writing Month. We do whatever it takes to crank out 50,000 during the month of November. This is my sixth year to do NaNo and am delighted that it works so well for me. I cannot guarantee that every writer would benefit from participating in NaNoWriMo but I do think that every writer ought to give it serious consideration.

A few years ago I decided to write myself a little letter as part of my process of gearing up for another NaNoWriMo. It was a letter from my early NaNo self to my future NaNo self - ramblings and reminders about some of the things that had worked for me in those first two attempts as well as some of them that didn’t work so well.

I am including one of those tips below - because it just might be helpful in other writing as well as for NaNo. We all have times when the thoughts flow as the words come tumbling from our fingers. Other times we just can’t think what to write. Maybe that’s a time to try something new. Maybe to type anything. Just type. Next time you get stuck, why not try it? Who knows? Maybe it will get you unstuck.

…

Type anything; just type

... 

You will probably have more than one goal for this project but you need to know which one is your highest priority. For me, the overriding goal of NaNoWriMo is to crank out the words, to meet that word count. Yep, yep; even if it means that I end up typing “I don’t know what to write. What in the world shall I write about now?” or “Okay; I have 300 words; where in the stink can I find 1700 more? Let’s see; I think I’ll write about such-and-such.”

I am fully aware of the silliness of such a venture; why would I want to end up with 50,000 words of useless gibberish? Obviously I don’t want that. But I decided to let anything go - to count anything - simply because the word count was my top priority. AND I have been happy to note that I rarely end up going down the total nonsense route. Oh, yes, I have taken advantage of that self-granted freedom to write anything, but usually something has grown out of it.

It reminds me of the movie Finding Forrester when Sean Connery told the kid to start typing anything, specifically instructing him to copy from Forrester’s own work.

"Sometimes the simple rhythm of typing gets us from page one to page two. And when you begin to feel your own words, start typing them."

"Punch the keys, for God’s sake!" 

"YES! You’re the man now, dog!"

...

Great movie, by the way!

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Spoiler alert: Sometimes this tactic can also get you into big trouble. That's all I'll say about that.




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