I did my first Nanowrimo in Novemember 2013. This is a post about what I did to get ready for it.
I heard about fast drafting at the Festival of Romance, so I did some research about it, before starting Nanowrimo. Below are some of what I think are the most useful posts about fast drafting.
http://taradairman.com/2013/09/19/first-drafting-now-96-faster/
http://yastands.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/tips-for-fast-drafting.html?m=1
http://labelleseditorialservices.com/blog/fast-drafting-a-word-count-builder/ I do internal dialogue too as I always seem to write in 1st person
http://writerunboxed.com/2011/06/29/kicking-out-a-fast-first-draft-2/
http://lynnettelabelle.com/blog/writing-tip-3-fast-drafting/
http://lifelistclub.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/fastdraft-how-to-do-it-successfully-and-what-you-learn-along-the-way/
http://turbomonkeytales.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/fast-drafting-wrap-up.html?m=1
What did I do to prepare for Nanowrimo?
Prepare – write blogs posts in advance, eat meals from the freezer, give yourself time to write for this much time over this period. Make life easy on yourself. I had written some blogs already, and we did eat beans on toast and cheese on toast for a few evenings during that time.
Plotting - Do some plotting so you don’t get stuck. Even a confirmed pantser really can’t maintain that many words a day without knowing at least a bit where they’re meant to be going. It also stops you writing yourself into a dead end. If you really don’t like planning, you could just do a bullet point for each scene, to show how you move from one scene to the next. You can still do the creative *how do they do that, what do they say stuff* as you write, but at least you know you’re writing in the right direction. For most of the story I used my bullet point scene word document planner.
I reached a wall with 1/3 of the story left to write, and I couldn’t plot it on my usual word doc, so I stopped writing for a few days, I cracked out the Post its, pencil and paper. At the time I was anxious I should just be writing, but I didn’t know how to end it. A few hours with the post its and I was back to writing almost every day. Once I had that part plotted, I was back in the characters’ world.
Tell friends & family to leave you alone – I told the BF what I was doing, and he was very supportive with me having protected time to write.
Character preparation - I had character biogs for the three main characters – age, job, where they lived, their motivations, their character traits. I had worked on these for a few evenings before 1 November. So by the start of Nov I pretty much had them in my head, talking to me.
What were my Nanowrimo numbers?
I ‘won’ Nanowrimo on 21 November, when I finished the story, and had finished an additional chapter of 4500 words. I didn’t go back to work out where the extra chapter needed to go, I just wrote it, and it’s a separate word doc. Total word count = 77,293
Average word count per day = 77,293/21 = 3680
However, I didn’t actually write every day, life got in the way, I was away at the Classic Car show, we had the BF’s parents staying with us, I had an some mimsying around to do on the internet...etc
I wrote for 13 of those days, on the other days I wrote nothing, or I planned with Post It notes . That’s an average word count per day of writing of 77,293/13 = 5945
Trust me, I’m as shocked as you are!
How did you get on, doing Nanowrimo?
Readers, did this whole Nanowrimo thing pass you by?
I’d love to hear from you,
Until next time when I'll go over some *fast drafting tecniques* which worked for me.
Liam Livings xx
I heard about fast drafting at the Festival of Romance, so I did some research about it, before starting Nanowrimo. Below are some of what I think are the most useful posts about fast drafting.
http://taradairman.com/2013/09/19/first-drafting-now-96-faster/
http://yastands.blogspot.co.uk/2012/05/tips-for-fast-drafting.html?m=1
http://labelleseditorialservices.com/blog/fast-drafting-a-word-count-builder/ I do internal dialogue too as I always seem to write in 1st person
http://writerunboxed.com/2011/06/29/kicking-out-a-fast-first-draft-2/
http://lynnettelabelle.com/blog/writing-tip-3-fast-drafting/
http://lifelistclub.wordpress.com/2012/06/13/fastdraft-how-to-do-it-successfully-and-what-you-learn-along-the-way/
http://turbomonkeytales.blogspot.co.uk/2013/07/fast-drafting-wrap-up.html?m=1
What did I do to prepare for Nanowrimo?
Prepare – write blogs posts in advance, eat meals from the freezer, give yourself time to write for this much time over this period. Make life easy on yourself. I had written some blogs already, and we did eat beans on toast and cheese on toast for a few evenings during that time.
Plotting - Do some plotting so you don’t get stuck. Even a confirmed pantser really can’t maintain that many words a day without knowing at least a bit where they’re meant to be going. It also stops you writing yourself into a dead end. If you really don’t like planning, you could just do a bullet point for each scene, to show how you move from one scene to the next. You can still do the creative *how do they do that, what do they say stuff* as you write, but at least you know you’re writing in the right direction. For most of the story I used my bullet point scene word document planner.
I reached a wall with 1/3 of the story left to write, and I couldn’t plot it on my usual word doc, so I stopped writing for a few days, I cracked out the Post its, pencil and paper. At the time I was anxious I should just be writing, but I didn’t know how to end it. A few hours with the post its and I was back to writing almost every day. Once I had that part plotted, I was back in the characters’ world.
Tell friends & family to leave you alone – I told the BF what I was doing, and he was very supportive with me having protected time to write.
Character preparation - I had character biogs for the three main characters – age, job, where they lived, their motivations, their character traits. I had worked on these for a few evenings before 1 November. So by the start of Nov I pretty much had them in my head, talking to me.
What were my Nanowrimo numbers?
I ‘won’ Nanowrimo on 21 November, when I finished the story, and had finished an additional chapter of 4500 words. I didn’t go back to work out where the extra chapter needed to go, I just wrote it, and it’s a separate word doc. Total word count = 77,293
Average word count per day = 77,293/21 = 3680
However, I didn’t actually write every day, life got in the way, I was away at the Classic Car show, we had the BF’s parents staying with us, I had an some mimsying around to do on the internet...etc
I wrote for 13 of those days, on the other days I wrote nothing, or I planned with Post It notes . That’s an average word count per day of writing of 77,293/13 = 5945
Trust me, I’m as shocked as you are!
How did you get on, doing Nanowrimo?
Readers, did this whole Nanowrimo thing pass you by?
I’d love to hear from you,
Until next time when I'll go over some *fast drafting tecniques* which worked for me.
Liam Livings xx
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