October is NaNoCheatMo
By Bill Ferris | October 2, 2021 |
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.
National Novel Writing Month (sometimes referred to as “NaNoWriMo” or “November”) is just around the corner, which means it’s time to fool yourself into thinking you can write your literary opus in a mere thirty days. That’s a lot of work, especially considering you’ve got a lot of eating to do on Thanksgiving and a lot of mall doors to bust down on Black Friday. I know you can do it, though. In fact, you can finish your novel in November easily by using one weird trick. You see, NaNoWriMo is much easier if you take a shortcut, by which I mean, take a longcut: start your novel in early October and pretend you wrote it in only thirty days.
That’s right, I want you to cheat.
Welcome to NaNoCheatMo!
Here’s how to do it:
- Step 1: Start writing your novel in early October.
- Step 2 (important): Tell no one.
- Step 3: On November 1, when you’re about halfway through your draft, make a big show about how you’re excited to finally start writing your novel, and how, gee whiz, you think you might really make it to 50,000 words this year!
- Step 4: Finish your novel by November 30 while continuing to tell no one of your chicanery.
- Step 5: Bask in the admiration of peers and get hot dates with attractive people by saying you wrote an entire novel in thirty days.
- Step 6: Take your secret to your grave.
There are many good reasons to participate in NaNoCheatMo, including but not limited to:
Image courtesy of NaNoWriMo
- NaNoWriMo is too damn hard. Allegedly Stephen King tried NaNoWriMo a few years ago. He was so worried he couldn’t finish an entire novel in November, he wrote a practice one in October to make sure he could do it. Folks like him make writing look so easy, the only way to get revenge is to fake it now and then.
- The supply chain. People are saying you should order your Christmas gifts early this year because COVID-19 is causing supply-chain problems. What is a supply chain? I have no idea, but odds are good that the person you’re talking to doesn’t know either, so it sounds like a perfectly valid excuse.
- The Senior Circuit. Like the PGA Tour or 5K races, nobody expects a middle-aged or elderly person to do things as quickly and cheaply as twenty-somethings jacked up on Red Bull and cigarettes. We’ve got jobs and kids and mid-life crises to deal with, so it’s natural that it takes us a little longer. When you reach a certain age, these kinds of tricks make you look like a charming rascal, a colorful rogue, or even a rapscallion.
“But isn’t that dishonest?” you say. “Isn’t it unethical to claim victory for writing a novel in a month when it actually took you twice that long?”
You are asking the wrong question. The proper question is, “How many more video games can you play/movies can you watch/friends can you visit/literary grudges can you nurse if you cut your daily word count in half?”
If you cannot bear the thought of putting a small PNG on your blog because you didn’t follow the rules of an imaginary contest whose only goal is to get you to write a damn book in the first place, then perhaps storytelling isn’t your thing. Let me remind you that you’re writing fiction; lying is literally your job.
Now get to work, and don’t snitch on anyone who cheats.
When are you starting your NaNoWriMo novel? Share your cheating strategies in the comments, we promise not to tell anyone.
[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, the title of this drew me right in and every subsequent word was golden! Laughed so hard my husband made me read it to him aloud. Off to share on FB!
BTW: the only time I ever « participated » in NaNoWriMo, I was already 25K words in—and then it took me 8 more years to untangle the mess!
“Let me remind you that you’re writing fiction; lying is literally your job.” LOL!
NaNoCheatMo just think of the word counts you can brag about come November.
I was actually thinking of doing NaNoWriMo this year, but I already have like 5000 words of my novel written… Maybe I’ll do some of the cheat as well.
I was a colorful rogue in my youth, but now I aspire to full rapscallion status.
And whatever story you have to tell yourself to actually sit down to write, I will not be throwing stones from here.
Funny piece, as always, Bill — keep up the great work!
I started mine in 2017, and shut your pie hole about it. BTW, what does the winner get?
Since no respectable novel is only 50,000, it’s super fair to start before or finish afterwards and still claim victory :-) 50,000 words is 50,000 words.
I love this. I’m not prone to cleverness but I recognize it! I would never join this fantasy, have any part in it. Actually it reminds me of a friend at a boring cocktail party after her husband wandered off. When the proverbial question arose from another guest WHAT DO YOU DO? She told the guy she was a famous ballerina. This November thing always makes me think of her.
As usual, buried deep in Mr. Ferris’ mockery is a truth: NaNoWriMo is “an imaginary contest whose only goal is to get you to write a damn book….” And it does work. I learned to turn off my internal editor and produce—and was surprised when I actually wound up with some good stuff. I did (barely) make 50,000 words, and then had to throw away about 20,000 in order to rewrite and bang things into the shape of a respectable 90,000-word novel. Respectable, not successful. But still…. It became my first finished novel. I’m currently working (SO slowly) on the third book in the series.
If you’re wishing you could find a way to get going, I recommend finding another writer or two or three and agreeing to the one-month format. It doesn’t have to be November. Then report daily to each other about how you’re doing. Of course you’ll have a load of crap when you’re done. But its quality and quantity will amaze you.
Brilliant! I love Nanowrimo for the burst of daily productivity in November it allows me. It’s the perfect way to start a new novel, for me. There’s no time to doubt, it’s just write, write, write. But I always feel some guilt going into it with a few scenes already written. So thank you for creating Nanocheatmo! That’s a challenge I can meet!