There are only a few more days before NaNoWriMo starts.  This is when people begin to panic because they don’t know what they are writing about.  This is when people start chomping at the bit because they do know what they are writing about. 

Whatever category you fit into, it’s not too late to get yourself prepared.  Last year I posted about Tools. 

Let’s get a little more general…

Don’t think you have the time?  Write down your activities during the next few days (or think back to how you spent your week) and decide what to cut.  Make time.  If it’s important to you then you will find it.

Do you have a support team?  If not, find one.  There’s this community, the NaNoWriMo forums and a bunch of other sites/communities.  They may not be able to replace your family, become your maid or cook meals during November, but they will be able to commiserate.  Do you have a writing buddy in town or online?

Find your motivation.  Even that person who will razz you about not completing your goal can be motivation.  Do you want to test yourself?  Do you want to be a storyteller?  Are you marking something off your life goal list?  Will a reward system keep you motivated throughout November?

What is your goal?  Are you writing 50k for one novel?  Are you writing 100k for two novels?  Are you re-writing a previous NaNo from scratch?  (Yes, MFA students regularly do this with short stories to make them better.  Sounds like torture, doesn’t it?) Do you want to see if a novel can be written that includes song lyrics in every paragraph and still makes sense?  Are you going to focus on dialogue, action, plot or character?

More specific tools:
yWriter - helps you keep track of your novel and lets you move scenes/chapters around.
Write or Die Desktop edition ($10) – did you use the web version last year and find yourself surfing the net?  You can get the same oompf without the temptation.

What other ideas do you have to make the next few days fly by so you’re more prepared for November?

It’s very handy, when doing NaNoWriMo, to know how quickly you can write. It helps you plan out writing times and know, realistically, how much time you need to finish your novel/catch up/meet your daily goal. The goal of this exercise is to give you an idea of how quickly you write. Don’t cheat :-p

Set a timer (or use Write or Die) and then write 500 words of a story set in one of these images:

Images courtesy of Dreamstime (where I have my stock image portfolio).

Not only does this exercise give you an estimate of how quickly you can write 500 words (which you can obviously use to calculate about how long it will take you to write your 1,667 daily word goal) but it also gives you some practice just writing without caring if it’s good. Do you hear that? Write 500 words of utter crap set in one of these pictures. Not something good, this is NaNo, quantity over quality remember. You’ll make it good when you revise, for now, just get it written.

At this point you should register for NaNoWriMo if you haven’t done so already.  The servers seem to be stabilized and it’s a good time to go hunting on the forums for tips and tools.

Most of us this year have vocalized we have no idea what we’re doing.  No characters, no plot… not a problem!  Take a moment or two this week to write down a few things to help you get started.

Write down:
A short description of the novel you’d like to read.
Key plot words that intrigue you.
Character names or occupations that you want to explore.

Now take out this list every few days and review it.  Feel free to add to it.  Your subconscious will work on it and soon you’ll have an idea before November 1st.

Here’s the very late exercise prompt from Monday.  Coincidentally, it will help with NaNoWriMo prep or could be used as an exercise in NaNoWriMo to increase your word count.

One of the unstated premises of shows like The Real World and Survivor is what happens when a person is removed from their element.  As a NaNoWriMo character exercise this can reveal how your character reacts to a stressful situation.  As a word count booster, it can be a dream sequence.

So what happens when a computer geek is put on the court as a professional basketball player?  Or the surfer dude is in Alaska near the water but no waves?  Or the earth bound human winds up on a ring of Saturn?  Or the 6 foot tall man finds himself standing amongst a crowd of women who are at least 8 feet tall?

Run with it and have fun.

That really is this Monday’s exercise. NaNoWriMo is coming up, it’s not so close that it should start actually being on your mind in any sort of serious way, but you may want to start thinking about what you’re going to write this year.

So…

Start thinking

After NaNoWriMo the novel sometimes gets shoved into a drawer and stays there.  I have a dare for you.

Take it out and send the first 500 words of your novel (or a short story) to the Muse Marquee for their Hook Contest.  You’re giving them permission to publish it and publicly critique it.  Can you handle it?  (Yes, you can use a pseudonym.)  The contest deadline is August 15th, 2009.

For this exercise set yourself a time limit. Make it short. Make it 20 minutes if you write flash, maybe an hour if you write short stories. Pick something that will give you enough time to write a piece, but not enough to think about it. You hear me? No thinking allowed.

After you’ve set your time, set a timer.

As soon as you are ready to write, click on the cut below — no peeking before. None. Seriously, don’t even think about it or your Inner Editor will win. You will see two pictures. Pick one to write about. Give yourself a couple seconds. Seriously, seconds, not minutes. Give yourself a couple seconds to look at it and think about the story you want to tell inspired by it, then turn your timer on and go.

Start writing and don’t stop until you reach the end of the story or your timer goes off. Did you tell a whole story? Did you make it to the end before the buzzer? If not, don’t worry, we’ll do a few more of these before November to get better at the speed-writing thing. The thing is, if you set yourself a time limit you won’t have time to listen to your editor if you want to get the story done, which is what NaNo is all about, isn’t it?

Don’t revise your story. Put it away for a few weeks then, when you’ve put some distance between it and yourself you can go back to it and polish it up. For now though, it’s all about beating your Inner Editor — and quantity over quality.

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