Elodie's Advice for Aspiring NaNoists

As a seasoned veteran of NaNoWriMo (with about as many failed attempts under my belt as successful ones), I can assure you that I’ve gone through all the phases—from “This is gonna be great, my plot is pure gold and life is like a Zac Efron musical” to “I AM ONE PLOT HOLE AWAY FROM SETTING THIS IDEA ON FIRE.” The Interwebz are chock full of how-to guides helping you navigate the fiery trauma of NaNoWriMo, but I thought I’d throw my two cents in too!

Now, if you decided to participate in NaNoWriMo this year, then, according to my hastily scribbled calculations (okay, fine, I used a calculator), you should all have about five thousand words by now. Well, actually five thousand and one. EXACTLY five thousand and one. Do not deviate from the following structured plan, because all your writerly hopes and aspirations will probably die like a beloved character in a JK Rowling novel.

1. Ignore your inner editor. My inner editor sounds a lot like my old English teacher and has a penchant for pointing out my grammatical shortcomings. Forget a comma—he balks. Misplace a modifier, and he has a grand mal seizure. But the beauty of NaNoWriMo is that you’re encouraged to let dangling participles run rampant and leave spelling mistakes unfixed. So ignore your jerkface inner editor! Bask in the freedom! I know this is much like asking you to ignore your little brother as he shoots you repeatedly with his Nerf gun while your mom is saying woefully unhelpful things like "Elodie, I'm on the phone. He's younger, he doesn't know any better. Just ignore him." So yeah. Ignore him, or give him a good smack in the face. Either way.

2. Get to know your characters. They are not static, one-dimensional vessels. They are complicated and eccentric and all that gooey stuff in the center of the Tootsie Pop. People say a good way to get to know your characters is to take them out for coffee, so give it a try. Example:

Elodie: So, tell me about your childhood.
Character: It sucked. This sucks. This coffee shop SUCKS! Who picked this place? Was it you? And WHAT IS UP with my grande iced upside-down caramel macchiato, because I’m pretty sure I ordered it with two pumps of toffee nut syrup and NOT five pumps of liquid SUCK.
Elodie: …We could go to Starbucks.
Character: (Starting to cry) My childhood was so hard.

3. Write with friends. Everybody gets in ruts. Even that person who thinks their novel is the brainchild of excellence will get to the point where writing that brainchild becomes a dreaded chore. So round up some fellow NaNoists and commiserate. Complain together. Hash out your plot holes. I used to have word wars with a friend of mine named Jacob. It was a good way to get the story rolling again, and it usually freaked out whatever misguided family member poked their head in to ask if I’d seen the remote and got “THE ONLY REASON YOU SHOULD BE INTERRUPTING ME WHILE I’M IN THE ZONE IS IF YOU WANT YOUR FACE RIPPED OFF AND ADDED TO MY FACE COLLECTION” in response.

4. It’s all about the journey. If at the end of this adventure you have 50,000 words of unadulterated crap rotting away in your computer… so what? Polish it up! Make it shine! You have a massive amount of quantity just waiting to be turned into quality. If nothing else, you have something unique to write about in those college essays. I did, and it was a hit. Best of luck!

Have you completed exactly 5,001 words? Is that number even correct? Do you need help filling in plot holes? Do you just want to VENT about how hard NaNoWriMo is? Go for it!

Related post: Build Your NaNoWriMo Survival Kit