Another !@#$% NaNoWriMo Article
By Bill Ferris | November 19, 2016 |
Warning: Hacks for Hacks tips may have harmful side effects on your writing career, and should not be used by minors, adults, writers, poets, scribes, scriveners, journalists, or anybody.
Do you really want to do this to yourself again? Don’t you deserve a break? Are you really doing National Novel Writing Month again?
Think of how much you could get done if, instead of spending the time hunched over your laptop trying to find the perfect synonym for “car,” you took up another hobby? Or learned a new skill? Why, I bet you could build a whole new house in a month! You could start NaHoBuiMo. It sounds no more ridiculous than its current nickname.
But you have signed up for NaNoWriMo again, just as I’ve signed up to give you another version of the NaNoWriMo advice column you’ve already absorbed again and again. We’ve danced this waltz many times, you and I, and we’ll dance it many more, no matter how often we step on each other’s toes.
So very well. Another NaNoWriMo advice article, even though we both know better.
How to Win at NaNoWriMo
Set a Daily Goal. Ye gods, that sounds just awful, doesn’t it? If you write a thousand words an hour, every word you type is about four seconds of your life you’ll never get back. That adds up to books that you won’t read. Reps at the gym that you won’t take. Hot wings you won’t eat. But you’ve already committed to it, haven’t you? Well then, sure, what’s a few more grains of sand spilling through an hourglass that only pours one way?
Give Yourself Permission to Write Badly. Permission! If only this slurry of used coffee grounds and wet cigarette ash gushing from your keyboard could be purified by merely withholding your permission! As if your wells of enthusiasm and inspiration had not dried up a week and a half ago, and you had no choice but to frack into the bedrock of madness. And not the beautifully tragic Sylvia Plath-style madness, either. You’re in the grips of full-on, I-dedicate-this-Monster-Energy-Drink-to-Odin type of madness.
photo by ErgSap
Embrace the Community. Spend time chatting with your fellow suckers trapped in a hell of your own making. Your new friend Linda just told you this is her seventh NaNoWriMo in a row. You refrain from asking if she’s published any of them, and she offers you the same discretion; you both know the answer. And you both know you’ll be back again next year, doomed to wallow in your misery like you’re trapped in the Greek mythological underworld.
Just Write One Word after Another. They say time slows down in a car accident. Every second feels like an hour as you watch the hood crumple into the starboard side of a Hyundai Elantra. NaNoWriMo is like that, except without the adrenaline rush or the insurance payout.
Persevere. The middle is the hardest part. Not just because this is where your story falls apart and you realize your protagonist is an unlikeable sociopath. But because you’ve passed the Point of No Return. To quit now would be to abandon almost three weeks’ worth of bad puns and lazy characterization. If you stay, you’ll crash in a fiery heap, but if you hit the eject button this close to impact, your parachute will will slow your momentum just enough to let you live through the experience of breaking every bone in your body (note: that’s a metaphor for regret). Just the thought of it makes you want to smash yourself in the head with your coffee mug, the one that says, “Writers Block: When Your Imaginary Friends Won’t Talk to You.” The mug won’t break, no matter how many times you brain yourself. Oh no, it seems to say. This month isn’t done with you yet.
Find a Reason to Finish. You’ve long since forgotten the reasons you started this fool’s errand. At this point, you’re running mostly on caffeine and spite. You hate your book. You hate your word processor. You hate the author of this column for enabling you. All of these are deserving targets of your enmity. Take solace that it may be enough to see you through to the end. If hatred was good enough a motivation for Darth Vader, it’s good enough for you, too. And on November 30, as you finish pummeling your book into existence, you will curse your own name loudest of all for putting yourself through all this again, knowing all the while we’ll both be doing this again next year.
Keep writing!
How do you power through NaNoWriMo? Share your advice in the comments?
[coffee]
After college, Bill Ferris (he/him) left Nebraska for Florida to become a rich and famous rock star. Failing that, he picked up the pen to become a rich and famous novelist. He now lives in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, and looks forward to a life of poverty and ridicule.
Bill, how did you know my worst NaNoWriMo year was exactly as you described? I did 50K but my motivation was not to write the Great American Novel. No, I wanted the winner’s 50 percent discount on Scrivener for Mac. Sometimes you have to take your inspiration where you can find it.
I do my job: I offer sympathy and encouragement and permission to quit to any bloggers I regularly visit who seem to require it at this time of year.
I don’t know why there’s such a load of guilt – probably because of the expectations – but, though I’m sure fear, guilt, and pressure increase survival in certain outdoor circumstances, I don’t think they produce good writing (at least not in me).
This is voluntary, people. There are no NaNoWriMo police.
Negative reinforcement is the worst kind.
But if the participation in a group works for some people, why not?
And I get to appear kindly with my metaphorical milk-and-cookies. Win/win.
PS If you need encouragement, drop me a line.
OK, Bill. I laughed out loud through this. I prefer laughter to abusing myself in this particular way each November. Writers can indulge in self-flagellation so many other ways.
I power through by not reading any emails, tweets, or blogs like this, no matter how well written they are, and worthy of a good snort. Since I did read this column, I’m obviously not doing NaNoWriMo this year. My spine is grateful.
Thanks for the chuckle!
How do I power through NaNoWriMo? I don’t. Since I’ve long said that one of the reasons I don’t read (does that sound like Donald Trump?) …I don’t read (much) fiction (I realize this is a site geared to fiction writers) I’ve long said that my life reads more like fiction than fact (so therefore I prefer nonfiction over fiction).
I went the blog route from 2010-15 with 50th year daily transcriptions of diary entries I wrote, first as a high school pupil in Iowa, then as a college student in Missouri. These were word for word real time entries from a coming of age point of view. The creative part was giving each entry a title. I now add a monthly post to keep A 1961-65 Park College Diary current.
On Twitter @BarbaraMcDWhitt
Being retired and trapped in a wheelchair, I just crawl my way through NaNoWriMo and get to 50k…………………………………BUT I sniggered my way through the post, as a couple of years that was my approach in the last frenetic week. Might be this year too as my disability is out of control……and the dogs are after my breakfast *&^”*@!#DaMn
I don’t do NANo. Never have, never will. Mostly I tell myself it is because I am way too busy from October thru December with events at the local art center, which includes mounting a holiday show mid-December that I often write, but that isn’t the only reason. When I think about maybe doing it, my blood pressure rises, I get short of breath, my heart pounds and I am numb with fear. What if I don’t finish? What if I let my community of NaNo friends down? What if I want to say, “To hell with it” and go to a movie?
Actually, I think I will.
Ha, ha, Bill. Goals, write badly, hell, time distortion, no parachute, Darth envy … All good reasons for moi to sit back and watch fellow writers turn into caffeine zombies while I relax.
Bill, you’ve beautifully captured the agony I can only imagine. I mean, I love the spirit of NaNoWriMo, the theory of NaNoWriMo, but I freaking HATE the timing of NaNoWriMo.
I mean, could you FIND a less convenient month for this? Okay, so maybe December would suck even more. But seriously, November has holidays (which often include travel, exposure to family, and the associated level of alcohol necessary for the aforementioned) end-of-year crunch time at work, and now and then we throw in an election, just to make things even more interesting. And hey, maybe even an UnCon (where I was disappointed not to see you this year).
People of Earth, when I am King (something that may be delayed somewhat by the latest election), I am moving NaNoWriMo to a more convenient month. I’m thinking May, or maybe April. Who’s with me? Help me out here, Bill. We could start a movement, and together we could make National Novel Writing Month great again!
How about February? Really put the squeeze on. Twenty-eight days to churn out 50,000 words.
Ooh, you’re cruel, Diane.
I like that in a person… :)