Enter NaNoWriMo Winner, Persnickety Fox!
If you have never heard of NaNoWriMo, it's the abbreviation of National Novel Writing Month,. According to their 2011 press release, "participants are pledge to write 50,000 words in a month, starting from scratch and reaching “The End” by November 30.” Yesterday, November 30th, I hit 51,279 words.
I'll revoke my bragging rights in about half a week, to save the people around me the extended annoyance.
But in the meantime, I'll share with you what I gleaned from this crazy experience. Feel free to skip my commentary.
Lesson 1: Churning out 1,667 words a day does not have to be a health-damaging spiral of sleep deprivation. Nor must you write at least that amount daily to win.
Granted, my sleep schedule was already horrendously out of whack before November started. But during the first two weeks of my NaNo adventure, my insomnia was relentless. I grappled with exhaustion in the name of creativity and dedication in a most valiant fashion, but my efforts later gave way to frustration, procrastination, and a short-lived obsession with LittleKuriboh. My turning point came one night when I decided, "I can worry about my word count tomorrow." From then on, I was able to fall asleep in minutes (unlike my usual hour-ish of lying awake). Even better, I gradually got my sleep schedule back to a functional, more humane level. Did I reach 1,667 words a day? No. I fell back. But I had the mental energy to make up for the difference during Week 5.
Lesson 2: The Inner Editor should be re-titled to Backspace Button Pusher.
In Weeks 3 and 4, the Inner Editor came out. I wasn't coming up with ideas on my own; I had to ask someone if she could be my mental handball court; I bounced ideas off her, she let them rebound back. My Inner Editor took the opportunity to spread doubt in my mind and blocks to my progress. Second-guessing on anything-- words, sentence structure, plot twists, character names-- turned out to be an effective word count killer. Thus, the Inner Editor I will now call Backspace Button Pusher.
Lesson 3: Trust your brain. It is a better puzzle-solver than you will ever think possible.
I had backstory for only one character. Plot? Nada. Setting? So-so. But as I introduced this character, my imagination was able to fill in the blanks as the story progressed. Conflicts kept coming, ones that I didn't know how to solve while I wrote them out. But as I kept going, the answers would write themselves in ways I never expected would actually fit. I was fitting new shapes into a puzzle when I had no idea what the finished product would look like. My brain made seemingly random connections and gently pushed forth logical, and if failing that, at the very least inventive solutions to the chaos I was constructing. It amazed me every time I came up with something that clicked.
Lesson 4: Do not be too consumed with writing. Your brain needs to take a break and focus on other things to keep the inspiration flowing.
After a few grueling, unfruitful writing sessions, I learned that as much as I wanted to keep typing to see if I could just move the plot forward when it just wasn't moving, I needed to do menial things like eat and do laundry and live like a normal human being. That way, my awesome brain could benefit from the change in routine and better subconsciously solve the plot later.
And most importantly!
Lesson 5: Write stupid. It's okay.
Let me elaborate. This is the mantra I used to keep my Inner Editor away from my work, at least while I had the conviction to trust the phrase. I had gone all through life thinking that if I wrote a complete story, that story would be the best I could tell. That's part of the reason why I never completed a story in the first place until this challenge; I would nitpick and "wait" until I got better to revise and move forward. I soon realized that this rationalization would not help me win the NaNo challenge.
When you're writing anything with the goal of completing it, you have to remember that first draft is not the end result. So it's okay if you make mistakes. It's okay if there are typos. It's okay if the plot looks like a Whack-A-Mole arcade game. Those are what revisions will fix. But you can't revise what you haven't written yet. Thus, write stupid. It's okay.
I congratulate everyone who has joined the winner's circle for 2011! May your shiny new novels fill you with pride and joy! It's over! Woo!
I'll revoke my bragging rights in about half a week, to save the people around me the extended annoyance.
But in the meantime, I'll share with you what I gleaned from this crazy experience. Feel free to skip my commentary.
Lesson 1: Churning out 1,667 words a day does not have to be a health-damaging spiral of sleep deprivation. Nor must you write at least that amount daily to win.
Granted, my sleep schedule was already horrendously out of whack before November started. But during the first two weeks of my NaNo adventure, my insomnia was relentless. I grappled with exhaustion in the name of creativity and dedication in a most valiant fashion, but my efforts later gave way to frustration, procrastination, and a short-lived obsession with LittleKuriboh. My turning point came one night when I decided, "I can worry about my word count tomorrow." From then on, I was able to fall asleep in minutes (unlike my usual hour-ish of lying awake). Even better, I gradually got my sleep schedule back to a functional, more humane level. Did I reach 1,667 words a day? No. I fell back. But I had the mental energy to make up for the difference during Week 5.
Lesson 2: The Inner Editor should be re-titled to Backspace Button Pusher.
In Weeks 3 and 4, the Inner Editor came out. I wasn't coming up with ideas on my own; I had to ask someone if she could be my mental handball court; I bounced ideas off her, she let them rebound back. My Inner Editor took the opportunity to spread doubt in my mind and blocks to my progress. Second-guessing on anything-- words, sentence structure, plot twists, character names-- turned out to be an effective word count killer. Thus, the Inner Editor I will now call Backspace Button Pusher.
Lesson 3: Trust your brain. It is a better puzzle-solver than you will ever think possible.
I had backstory for only one character. Plot? Nada. Setting? So-so. But as I introduced this character, my imagination was able to fill in the blanks as the story progressed. Conflicts kept coming, ones that I didn't know how to solve while I wrote them out. But as I kept going, the answers would write themselves in ways I never expected would actually fit. I was fitting new shapes into a puzzle when I had no idea what the finished product would look like. My brain made seemingly random connections and gently pushed forth logical, and if failing that, at the very least inventive solutions to the chaos I was constructing. It amazed me every time I came up with something that clicked.
Lesson 4: Do not be too consumed with writing. Your brain needs to take a break and focus on other things to keep the inspiration flowing.
After a few grueling, unfruitful writing sessions, I learned that as much as I wanted to keep typing to see if I could just move the plot forward when it just wasn't moving, I needed to do menial things like eat and do laundry and live like a normal human being. That way, my awesome brain could benefit from the change in routine and better subconsciously solve the plot later.
And most importantly!
Lesson 5: Write stupid. It's okay.
Let me elaborate. This is the mantra I used to keep my Inner Editor away from my work, at least while I had the conviction to trust the phrase. I had gone all through life thinking that if I wrote a complete story, that story would be the best I could tell. That's part of the reason why I never completed a story in the first place until this challenge; I would nitpick and "wait" until I got better to revise and move forward. I soon realized that this rationalization would not help me win the NaNo challenge.
When you're writing anything with the goal of completing it, you have to remember that first draft is not the end result. So it's okay if you make mistakes. It's okay if there are typos. It's okay if the plot looks like a Whack-A-Mole arcade game. Those are what revisions will fix. But you can't revise what you haven't written yet. Thus, write stupid. It's okay.
I congratulate everyone who has joined the winner's circle for 2011! May your shiny new novels fill you with pride and joy! It's over! Woo!