A little inspiration for NaNoWriMo
Today is day nineteen of National Novel Writing Month—the month where crazy people the world over take the challenge to write a 50,000-word novel in a month. Besides fighting off a cold (I WILL win) and being slightly behind on my word count, I’m doing pretty good.
Going into the final ten days of the challenge, I have a definite plan: write 3,000 words per day for the next four days (Thanksgiving included) to get caught up with my word count and then continue my daily writing routine into the home stretch. This will be the first time I’ll have completed the challenge and I’m psyched!
If I need a little extra motivation, I turn to YouTube to search for a short writing video. I especially like this short clip from author James Scott Bell about the best writing advice he’s received:
Tell us, how is your NaNoWriMo going?
onewildword 
Does the reading public get a chance to read any of the results of NaNoWriMo? I get more intrigued each time you blog about it. I’m trying to work out a possible analogy between this extraordinary effort and cramming marathon training into one month! Do you spend a lot of time in advance developing an outline and cast of characters? Staggering commitment!
They don’t publish winners–people who finish the challenge. But writers have gone on to edit and polish their books and get them published. I understand the bestseller “Water for Elephants” by Sara Gruen started out as a NaNoWriMo book. According to Chris Baty, the writer who started Nano, it’s best not to spend to much time ahead of time outlining…a week or two. He has some great tips in his book “No Plot? No Problem” which is written specifically for NaNoWriMo. Check it out. You can do the 30-day challenge any month but you’ll have more company in November. Marathon training and Nano in one month? I believe the saying that busy people tend to get more done. 🙂