We’re already into the second week of October! For anyone in the writing community, you may know this means you only have about three weeks until NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). Writers brave enough are going to somehow manage to write 50k words in a single month! I’ve never done NaNoWriMo myself because the timing is always terrible, and this year because of final semester craziness I won’t be able to participate again, but I will be taking part in #Preptober. October is the month that is dedicated to preparing to write an entire novel in a month. Tamera Woods, also known as PenPaperPad, is hosting a huge collab of YouTubers where we’ll all be posting videos about what you should be doing to prepare for NaNoWriMo. Some videos have already been posted, so here is the playlist which will have all the videos added to them as they come along:
Along with the 2016 #Preptober playlist:
I’ll be creating a video for #Preptober which will be going out October 23rd, but until then I wanted to cover some basic tips on preparing for NaNoWriMo! You can also catch me on Instagram talking about #Preptober in the last week of October talking about last minute tips before NaNoWriMo goes full swing! And in November I’ll be your writing coach, posting every day on Instagram giving writing tips!
To have the best chance of winning NaNoWriMo here’s what you’re going to want to figure out in the month of October, that way when November comes along, you don’t have to think about the story, you just have to writ it!
- Choose a Story– Odds are, you’ll have a lot of stories floating around in your head. Find the story that calls to you the most and commit to it. NaNoWriMo is no place for abandoning novels because you get a better idea.
- Braindump– Any ideas you have for your novel, good or bad, write them down!
- Narrow Down– those ideas you just jumped? Time to figure out just how good they are. Start playing around with the idea
- Characterize– Figure out what characters will be in your book. Choose their names, features, odd habits. Spoiler alert: this is the topic I’ll be covering in my #Preptober video later this month!
- Outline– Now that you have your characters, it’s time to find your story. Let your characters lead the way and allow the story to form.
- Notebook– Buy a notebook that is small enough to carry with you everywhere. You’ll thank me for this later.
- Clear Your Schedule– I hope you had no plans for November because you’ll be doing a lot of writing and very little socializing, but it will be worth it, or just imagine the bragging right!
Alright, get to prepping! Who’s participating in NaNoWriMo this year?