NaNoWrimo begins in a few weeks.

Let’s help you get prepared for it now. Doesn’t matter if you’re a panster or a plotter. This one simple exercise will help you with your time in November.

• Find a November calendar you like and will look at. It’s up to you if you want one that shows the hour for each day or just an empty block.
• Enter all “must do” activities (doctor’s appointments, family time, working, classes, etc.) that you can’t put off.
• You should be left with some empty space showing you when you have time available to write. SCHEDULE YOUR TIME TO WRITE.

Good luck!
~Amber

Today was stressful at work and I made a conscious decision to NOT have a Coca-Cola Classic. I gave them up just over a week ago. This made me think about how our characters deal with stress. Something to think about as you prepare for NaNoWriMo is the evolution of our characters. How they deal with stress at the beginning of the novel can be quite different from how they deal with it at the end.

Can you think of some behaviors that people (or animals) exhibit when under stress? Feel free to share – you may help someone else build a character!
~Amber

I started this list last week and didn’t get it finished until tonight.  These are items we’ve said in previous years we’ll need for a successful year.  Take some of these ideas and feel free to add some more.

~Amber

Essentials
Back-up Plan (Dropbox, USB, Data CD, Google Docs, Copier)

Motivation (Writing buddy, Picking fun idea, Write or Die!, Bucket list, Doing something new/crazy, Competition, Become a storyteller, Bragging rights, Revenge)

Writing Tools (Paper, Pen, Pencil, Markers, Crayons, Notebooks, Laptop, Computer, PDA, Cell phone, AlphaSmart)

Helpers
Software (Write or Die!, yWriter, The Marshall Plan Writing Software, Word, OpenOffice, Excel)

Notes (Outlines, Character sheets, Wiki, Plot Points, Snowflake method)

Drinks and Snacks (Alcohol, Coffee, Tea, Soda, Candy, Cake, Brownies, Cookies, Chocolate)

Misc. (Totem, Jail for inner editor, Fingerless gloves, Writing hat, Mascot, NaNoWriMo wallpaper, Reward System, Calendar, Word widget, NaNoWriMo report card, Countdown ticker)

I think it’s time to share some of our favourite NaNoWriMo Toys, erm, I mean tools. Yes. Tools.

Dropbox

Dropbox is a great way to back up your novel (and other files) and keep it syncronized across multiple computers. It’s also free. Yay for free!

Write or Die

This is a fantastic little program/website that will be your best friend for word wars or when you just can’t quite find the will to write. It will help you pump out the words to increase your count. I guarantee it. The web-based version is completely free or you can buy the desktop version for a few bucks. I’ll be running short word wars on the latter off and on through the month of November to suppliment the more elaborate ones Arnold will be running.

Writing Meters

In addition to all the toys, widgets and meters you will find on the NaNoWriMo website (whee! Toys!) there’s also the ones at Writertopia and many other websites. If you have a favourite, please feel free to share them.

Anyone else have any fantastic must-have toys, erm, tools, for a sucessful NaNoWriMo? Other than coffee, of course.

~ Rhonda

It’s the middle of August. NaNoWriMo is closer than we think.

Whether you want to focus on current writing goals or making it over NaNoWriMo’s finish line, you need to have goals. The best ones are SMART ones.

Specific - Don’t be wishy washy as in “I’ll write when the mood strikes”. Be clear as in “I’ll write for 15 minutes a day for the next three weeks”.

Measurable – You should have concrete criteria for knowing if you met your goal or not. In the above example, you can mark on a calendar the days you wrote for 15 minutes.

Attainable- If the goal is something you really want to reach, you’ll move mountains to make it happen.  If you don’t have any free time, squeezing in those 15 minutes of writing may be difficult.  Figure out what obstacles are in your way and how you can get around them.

Realistic – Are you willing and able to reach your goal?  You’ve found those 15 minutes by limiting your morning routine to 20 minutes instead of 35.  You can focus on writing during the morning, right?

Timely or Tangible- If a goal is timely or has an end result that can be experienced with your senses, then you’re good to go.  Timely would be NaNoWriMo completed in 1 month.  Tangible would be a printed copy of your novel, a group of friends pretending to do a screen test for your novel or maybe you’ll throw a New Year’s Eve party and all the guests have to come dressed as a character from your novel.  Tangible can be wacky.

You can make little goals to help you towards your big goals.  For example, a lot of people do prep work prior to NaNoWriMo such as: jailing their inner editor, world building, creating a monetary system, sketching characters, making characters take personality tests, outlining the novel, stocking the freezer/pantry and setting up a reward system.

Good luck!
~Amber

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