Thursday, October 27, 2016

First Time NaNoWriMo: Prepping

With NaNoWriMo around the bend in four or five days, I thought I'd tell those of you who are doing it for the first time, how you should prep yourself for it.

I'm guessing you're at the end of your own personal prepping but here are a few things I do that have helped for many NaNoWriMo tries and this time as well.

1. Use the Story Outline Template

2. Look up images in Google Images that represent or loosely represent the many places you want to write about. It's good to get a visual on it.

3. Make folders and sort the pics in them.
Example: Village, Mystic Creatures, Main Character Sketch, the Main Square

4. Do a few doodles of your characters but don't push yourself to come up with the perfect look. You can always come up with the details later while you write.

5. Leave it alone but keep contemplating on it. Don't think too deeply about it until you actually need to write it.

6. Work on other projects to get a boost for your writing momentum. Writing for a whole month after having not written for weeks can be hard on you because you might end up suffering from Writer'sblockitis and get nowhere, ending up just wasting your time. To not waste your time, write little stories, even one-page short stories to keep that writing momentum. Another thing you can do is read books that inspire you or watch movies that inspire you.

IMPORTANT TIP:
Write on your calendar for each day that you will write from 1,500 to 3000 words. I have discovered after many tries that if you write about 1,500 to 3000 words per day, you will be able to finish in time. If you can't write 1,500, it's totally fine. This is just your basic goal for each day. And of course things might come up and you can't write at all, don't fret (too much) because I'm sure you can make it up on other days.

If your goal is to finish the 50,000 words, you can write instead of doing your other hobbies. If your goal is to get the experience, just write as much as you can.

50,000 words sounds like a lot but you might surprise yourself at the end of the month :)

Happy Writing! :D

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