Thursday, December 19, 2013
Sunday, December 1, 2013
CWW Does NaNoWriMo
We decided to give NaNoWriMo a try and spent the month of November meeting our goal: 30,000 words on our respective manuscripts. Some of us met it, some didn't, but we all learned valuable lessons from the experience. Here's what we learned:
Put yourself in the position to succeed. Turn off the Wi-Fi and make the time to write. If you're not in that chair with your fingers on the keyboard words won't appear on the page. They also won't appear if you're on Facebook or Pinterest.
Don't underestimate yourself. 1667 words a day, or however many words you set as the goal for yourself, may seem like a lot, but if you make the time and make sure you're ready to write you'll meet your goal.
Sometimes you have to get on the web and do some research to keep moving. If you're the kind of writer who needs to envision details about setting and characters, you might get stuck if you don't have a clear picture of what you are writing about. If that's the case, go ahead and turn on the Wi-Fi, 30 minutes spent on Wikipedia are worth being able to keep putting words on the page.
Outlining works. You have to know where you're going in order to get there most efficiently. If your story keeps going in half a dozen directions at the same time you might need to prepare an outline. Pick a scenario and follow it to the end, and then, when it's time to write, you'll have a roadmap to follow. You will also be able to focus on developing your characters, which is always a good thing.
Don't abandon your usual writing habits. If you work best when you review the previous day's work and then move on to new writing don't omit that first step for the sake of saving time. Don't be stingy with thirty minutes if it'll improve the quality of hours worth of work.
December is going to be busy and we won't have a meeting this month, but we'll keep on writing, and so should you.
Put yourself in the position to succeed. Turn off the Wi-Fi and make the time to write. If you're not in that chair with your fingers on the keyboard words won't appear on the page. They also won't appear if you're on Facebook or Pinterest.
Don't underestimate yourself. 1667 words a day, or however many words you set as the goal for yourself, may seem like a lot, but if you make the time and make sure you're ready to write you'll meet your goal.
Sometimes you have to get on the web and do some research to keep moving. If you're the kind of writer who needs to envision details about setting and characters, you might get stuck if you don't have a clear picture of what you are writing about. If that's the case, go ahead and turn on the Wi-Fi, 30 minutes spent on Wikipedia are worth being able to keep putting words on the page.
Outlining works. You have to know where you're going in order to get there most efficiently. If your story keeps going in half a dozen directions at the same time you might need to prepare an outline. Pick a scenario and follow it to the end, and then, when it's time to write, you'll have a roadmap to follow. You will also be able to focus on developing your characters, which is always a good thing.
Don't abandon your usual writing habits. If you work best when you review the previous day's work and then move on to new writing don't omit that first step for the sake of saving time. Don't be stingy with thirty minutes if it'll improve the quality of hours worth of work.
December is going to be busy and we won't have a meeting this month, but we'll keep on writing, and so should you.
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