Only 45 Shopping Days Until NaNoWriMo!
By Bill Ferris | September 16, 2017 |
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.
It seems like National Novel Writing Month comes earlier every year. Target and Walmart installed massive displays of pencils, pens, erasers, and notebooks back in August. Barnes & Noble is selling coffee mugs and Moleskines like they’re going out of style (or going out of business). Literary podcasts have already started playing “One Million Keystrokes,” “I saw Mommy Kissing the Dropbox Gremlin,” and all the other classic NaNo carols.
I know, I know, NaNoWriMo has gotten way too commercial. But between you and me? I love that time of year when I don my fall sweaters and pull the ol’ blog out of storage so I can hang my humblebrag posts about my daily productivity. There’s also the ritual of pretending to listen to members of my writing group tell me about their WIPs. Or the bittersweet cancelation of a promising third date so I can stay home and write 600 words of dreck. Truly a magical time. That’s why I want to share these tips on how to navigate the hustle and bustle of every writer’s favorite time of year.
Don We Now Our Writing Apparel
Whether it’s T-shirts emblazoned with Shakespeare quotations or coffee mugs that threaten to write you into the author’s novel, all writing merchandise is designed to remind us of the power of words, and make us forget that a lot of writers spend more on merch than they ever earn in royalties. Much like the ugly Christmas-sweater party, there’s something edifying about getting together with one’s fellow scribes and feigning appreciation of trite T-shirt slogans like, “Writing is my superpower,” and “I write to give the voices in my head something productive to do.”
Start Your Novel Now
We’re halfway through September, which means it’s almost October, better known as Secretly Start Working on your NaNoWriMo Novel Month. You probably know it by its acronym, SSWOYNANOWRIMONNOMO (which, by coincidence, is also a curse in a long-forgotten tongue, so don’t say it out loud lest you fall into the dreamless sleep of a thousand years, which will wreck your daily word count). Here’s the thing: Nobody is going to stop you from starting your NaNoWriMo novel early. Yes, I know the NaNoWriMo songs and stories about what happens to early starters, but we’re adults here. We can admit that Halifax the October Hobgoblin won’t steal all the vowels from your keyboard; that the Dropbox Gremlin isn’t going to replace entire chapters of your book with its erotic haiku while you sleep; and that the Eternal Editor will not demand you rewrite the entire manuscript if you ever want to see your doggo alive again. These are just stories other writers wrote to try to prevent cheating and to maybe turn into mediocre children’s books. Just start your book. Nobody’s going to yell at you. We’d all like to believe Santa Claus is real and that we can write a publishable novel in thirty days. You’ll learn to live with it the same way you came to terms with the fact that your parents did all the work on your science fair project.
photo by grapefruitmoon
Get Those Inspirational Blog Posts Ready
A recent study showed that fully one-third of all words written during November are writing-advice articles for NaNoWriMo, probably. This tradition is as beloved as the school Christmas pageant or any given Charlie Brown holiday special. There’s no reason you can’t join in the fun as well by writing a few top-ten lists, inspirational articles, #amwriting threads on Twitter, and on and on. You could theoretically write a whole book of NaNoWriMo advice, but the Dropbox Gremlin would definitely mess with a project like that.
Make a List, Check it Twice
I refer to, of course, the list of excuses you’ll make when you give up writing your book after two weeks. “Things are crazy at work,” is an all-time classic, but for the last few years, I’ve been forced to use, “The Dropbox Gremlin replaced three of my chapters with erotic haiku.”
What are your favorite NaNoWriMo traditions? Let us know 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.
My favorite NaNoWriMo tradition is listening to my writing buddies agonize out loud about their projects and giving thanks that I have not (yet) succumbed to the frenzy.
Meanwhile, Bill, thank you for this gem: “a lot of writers spend more on merch than they ever earn in royalties.” Behind me is a tall bookshelf filled with books on How to Write. I am plumb scared to count the total number of titles or add up what they have cost me over the years, in either $$ or hours lost from actual writing.
Ode to National Novel Writing Month
By Alfred Lord Tennyson, 1809 – 1892
Write out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Write out, wild bells, and let him die.
Write out the old, Write in the new,
Write, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Write out the false, Write in the true.
Write out the grief that saps the mind
For those that here we see no more;
Write out the feud of rich and poor,
Write in redress to all mankind.
Write out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Write in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.
Write out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Write out, Write out my mournful rhymes
But Write the fuller minstrel in.
Write out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Write in the love of truth and right,
Write in the common love of good.
Write out old shapes of foul disease;
Write out the narrowing lust of gold;
Write out the thousand wars of old,
Write in the thousand years of peace.
Write in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Write out the darkness of the land,
Write in the Book that is to be.
good read!
let’s see where my writing goes today as I start out laughing :)
Awesome!
I love your post. Made me chuckle out loud several times, especially “…by coincidence, is also a curse in a long-forgotten tongue.”
I put forth serious effort to do NaNoWriMo a few years back but abandoned it. Didn’t like the pressure, and I read somewhere that most of what gets written doesn’t ever get published. Wonder how true that is… May try it again this year. I could use a kick in the butt to get writing again.