It’s been a while since I listed. I think. So, I thought I would list a few ideas to make your upcoming NaNoWriMo experience an enjoyable one. NaNoWriMo itself is an exercise is productivity. I’ll leave that motivation crap to the experts. I haven’t had a motivating day in my life. I’m of the JUST KEEP SWIMMING variety, myself.

Before the list, the explanation for the newly initiated. If, indeed, there are any of you left out there in the big wide open.

NaNoWriMo = National Novel Writing Month

I will take the very succinct ABOUT info from the NaNoWriMo site and direct you there for any further explanations and investigations about/of the yearly November event.

National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) is a fun, seat-of-your-pants approach to creative writing. 

On November 1, participants begin working towards the goal of writing a 50,000-word novel by 11:59 PM on November 30.

Valuing enthusiasm, determination, and a deadline, NaNoWriMo is for anyone who has ever thought about writing a novel.

After I found my very first NaNoWriMo experience in 2003 so incredibly fruitful, I decided I would keep doing it every November. That first NaNoWriMo was the drafting stage of my first published novel:

Before my first NaNo I always tried to write here and there. That doesn’t work for me. In fact, NaNo is even a stretch now, since I’ve been doing the novel-in-72hrs Muskoka Novel Marathon (MNM). But I still do the NaNo. It gave me one of my favourite stories and it showed me that there are many ways to write a novel. I need a frenetic pace…NaNo taught me that. MNM cemented that. I just cannot do the novel in a year…or two years…or three.

Oh, a list! Right. Almost forgot.

How to Thrive & Enjoy Your NaNoWriMo Experience Without Losing Your Head or Knotting Your Shirt – Listed: Chillaxing the NaNo

1. Do not make the 50,000 words a threat. We writers beat ourselves up over so many things. Let’s not take a fun productive endeavour and make it our enemy. The whole concept of NaNoWriMo is to get BIC (Bum in Chair). We aim for a fruitful November, filled with the joy of writing and creating and exploring our imaginations. Pure and simple. Don’t hold the loaded gun to your head and scream at yourself when you don’t meet a daily/weekly word-count goal. Just sit. Just write. Or dance when the words aren’t coming. Don’t pull the trigger. The favour you are doing yourself is participating in an exercise in productivity. The take-home should be a thoughtful introspection of your own process and perhaps a new regime of daily writing time. Not anxiety, self-hate, and mutilation. Enjoy this month of creativity.
2. See #1. It deserves the top two places on this list.
3. Find out where/how/when you write best. Ask yourself who you write for. Ask yourself why you write. This month of dedicated writing time should not be wasted on the mere task of writing. With myself, I felt that it helped to shape my future writing ‘career’. It was during my first NaNo that I discovered my magic hour. I wrote in the tiny hours of pre-6am for years after my 2003 NaNo year. During my NaNo, I set myself the task of finding a daily time to write…to stay on task and meet my 50K word goal. I had no time, so I made time. Much like the Netherlands found land where once there was none. That 5am hour is GOLDEN for a full-time person attempting to write on the side. And I found my creativity surged in that hour as well. While you’re finding the time, look for the place too. Hop from one place to another in your living quarters, in your neighbourhood, in your country. Find the nook(s) that most suit your writing requirements. Do you like silence or mayhem? Are you a coffee shop writer? Or a subway writer? Or a library writer? Or a kitchen table writer? You have a month…go forth and discover your prime writing land. How? Any damn way you please, actually. NaNoWriMo can be done in a sketchbook, on cafe napkins, in a laptop, on a tablet. It can be done with a pen, a pencil, a stylus, a crayon, or a keyboard. Discover your how this November. Whatever works for you. Permissions—that’s what NaNo is about for me. While you’re dealing with the other questions, it’s also fun to ask the WHO YOU WRITE FOR and WHY YOU WRITE questions. Just for, you know, fun. These questions are all about finding yourself as a writer. What better month to do that than during the month that celebrates writing?
4. Remember that the end-goal is about writing. It’s about taking the thought, ‘I’d like to try to write a novel’, and making it a reality. Sure…there’s an end-goal of 50,000 words during the month of November. Yep. It’s there. But the real goal is to get yourself writing…to form a habit. Let me break down the monolithic word-count goal for a second. 50,000 words. Sounds like a lot, right? Wrong. That’s 1,666.666666 words a day. I always think to myself, ‘if I can write one page a day, that’s a novel a year’. If you break down the seemingly impossible it becomes not only probable but possible. And then it becomes doable. But still…keep your eyes off the word count goal and on the BIC goal. Just sit. Just write.
5. Community. Get yourself over to the NaNoWriMo website and register. There’s an active FORUMS section where others the world over are trying to do the same thing as you. I discovered long ago that writing is as much a community thing as it is a lone venture. My days with the WCDR have taught me the value of community when you’re a writer. Don’t underestimate it. Join the forums, join in on the discussions…you don’t have to do this alone. Writers support writers.
6. Have fun. Have fun. Have fun. Put the gun down. Don’t pressure yourself. Get into a healthy habit of writing every day. Use November as your jumping off point to the rest of your writing life. You’re writing because you like to create. No matter how professional you come in this endeavor, never make it a job…never make it a horrible chain around your neck. Despair is not needed to be a productive enthusiastic creator of worlds through words. Just be yourself and remember why you write. And BIC!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
7. Chillax and have fun. Don’t lose your head or get your shirt in a knot. Sit. Write. Repeat.

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