With less than a week to go before the start of the Big Event, I thought I’d provide some links to some of the posts I’ve written on NaNoWriMo that talk about tips and tools that I’ve used in the past. I have not yet decided if I am going to participate this year. I may use the time to focus on short fiction, and get back into a normal daily routine, but it’s looking more and more like I won’t be doing the traditional competition. I just have too much on my plate. That said, you can add me as a buddy over at the NaNoWriMo site, and if I do participate, I’ll also be posting my results here each day just like I did last year.
Nevertheless, I did make a donation to the Office of Letters and Lights, which runs NaNoWriMo and I encourage you to do the same.
And now, here are the promised links:
- 5 tips for a successful NaNoWriMo (and how Scrivener can help)
- Using Scrivener (Links to articles I’ve written about my personal favorite writing tool)
- Using Evernote for NaNoWriMo. A thread started over in the Evernote discussion boards.
- Admitting defeat. My analysis of why the 60,000 words I wrote during the last NaNoWriMo won’t work as a novel. I think this is a good post to read for those still in the planning phase because it helps to understand why planning is so important.
- NaNoWriMo by the numbers. A brief breakdown and analysis of my progress through NaNoWriMo last year. For those interested in the stats.
- NaNoWriMo 2010, day-by-day. All my post-writing session posts for NaNoWriMo last year. Interesting to read through because you can see the good days and the bad days.
BONUS TIP: hold back 1 key scene that you are excited to write, especially during those first few weeks, even if it is out of sequence. Why? Over the course of 30 days, it’s inevitable that you’ll find one day where you just don’t feel inspired to write what you have planned for that day. The most important thing about NaNoWriMo, however, is to write every day and to avoid falling behind. If you keep one scene in reserve that you are really excited to write, you can pull it out on that day when you are not inspired by what you have on your plate, and swap it in. Write the scene you are excited about and save the other scene for the next day. I had 2 scenes like this last year and it worked like a charm for me.
5 days and counting. Good luck!
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