Tuesday, November 8, 2016

NaNo Survival Guide: Week 2

Yay, you've survived the first week of National Novel Writing Month!

Perhaps it's going wonderfully for you. Maybe the words are flying onto the page, your characters are still behaving themselves, and you're managing to keep your caffeine consumption to a reasonable level.

Or perhaps things aren't going so well. Maybe you ended up with an extra class assignment, your car broke down, your characters are doing weird things, and you feel like you have writer's block.

Regardless, keep going.

Remember that the most beautiful thing about NaNo is that, as long as you put some words on the page, you've made progress. You may not write an entire novel. That's okay. You're still making steps toward a goal.

Perhaps this week you're struggling with your plot and you want to edit some things. Personally, I would encourage you not to go back and edit. Write a paragraph describing what changes you want to make and then carry forward. You might come back in a few months and discover that  you have some usable ideas within what you were going to throw out.

Keep writing. You've got this. Even if you don't write 50k, you'll at least come out of the month with more words than what you started with.

Good luck, and happy writing!

2 comments:

  1. I'm feeling inspired just from rereading these pep talks, despite the lack of NaNo at the moment :) It's good writing advice for any time, too. It can be so hard if you're writing and keep going back to edit.

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    Replies
    1. The edit disease is a terrible one to have while writing. It makes everything go so much more slowly.

      I think one of the best parts about blogging is that it's almost like writing letters to your future self.

      Thanks for the comment!

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