Tuesday, November 20, 2012

What I have learned from NANOWRIMO

by C. Michelle Jefferies

This is the fourth or fifth time I've done NANO.

In the process of writing a 50,000 word novel in 30 days, I've learned alot. These are a few of the tricks. The great thing is that this can be applied to any writing of a novel whether in November or not.

1, Plan your novel. Know your structure, know your story, know the characters.

2, Think about the story for the few weeks before you start on the MS. Take notes, work in your project notebook, gather character pictures. Get your head IN the story.

3, It's okay to take something you wrote and didn't like and use the "strikethrough" element. It still counts as words.

4, It's okay to write crap in a rough draft. It's okay to write bare bones and flesh it out later. It's okay to write flowery and cut later. It's okay to write telling and then write the showing later. It's okay to leave blanks where secondary characters names should appear, you can figure them out later.

5, It's okay to cheer for yourself and post progress and to pat yourself on the back during and after. I mean come on who is crazy enough to write a book in a month?

The path to wisdom is not always straight

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